
THfflGS SO? 



i 



1/1 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



REV. EMORY J. HAYNES. 




New York; 

3NT. TIBBALS £z SONS, 

37 Park Row. 

l88o. 





Copyright, 1879, 
By N. Tibbals & Sons. 




P E E F AC E. 



Are these things so ? Let the reader 
answer. Whatever be the mystery of God's 
truth, the system of Christianity was taught 
by its Founder with simile, parable, and 
homely pictures from e very-day life. Thus 
every auditor was invited to test the teach- 
ings by the severest, because absolutely fa- 
miliar, standards. Christianity still invites 
the plain man's verification, after that an- 
cient fashion ; for the universe is forever 
a unity. Earth, air, sea, sky, and human 
life are garnished with illustrations to-day 
as then ; they crowd upon the eye, till 
the difficulty with some is which to choose. 

These excerpts were mostly taken from 



iv 



PREFACE. 



the current sermons of last year. It was 
primarily an effort to gratify cherished 
friends not resident in this city, and such 
imprisoned invalids as every parish has, 
whom I could not favor with a "loan/ 7 
never having had such a thing as a 11 writ- 
ten sermon. 77 It was my habit therefore 
to seize the moments earliest succeeding 
the preaching, while memory was vivid, 
and commit to paper salient passages from 
the discourses. From such material, soon 
pursued at greater length as a pleasure 
to myself, this collection has been made. 
I am also indebted to the ready pencil 
of a hearer, who has given me back my 
own again for the present purpose. 

EMORY J. HAYNES. 

BROOKLYN, N. Y., 1879. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 

"Let us argue it." No, I decline. Did you 
ever walk out of a starry night when some one 
suddenly calls attention to the milky way? 
Now you look straight at it, pierce it, and seem 
to see it fade almost into the general blue; 
there is almost no milky way. But take a 
half view, directing the eyes about forty-five 
degrees, and so, the hazy winrow, gray, seems 
dense and palpable as Saturn's rings. 

I will not debate your orthodoxy, nor argue 
to prove that you have backslidden: for you 
could refine and refine away, by subtleties of 
sophistry which even deceive yourself while 
speaking. Take you a half view between your 
skeptic's club of to-day and your prayer-meeting 
of twenty years ago; your Sabbaths now and 
Sabbaths then; your volumes of free thought 
now and your old Bible then; your self-care 



2 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



now and God-care then. Look half-way be- 
tween then, when at a father's death-bed you 
hoped for such a strong assurance as enveloped 
him, and now, when your departure, twenty 
years the nearer, has so little hope for immor- 
tality. We may argue too much. The human 
heart bears its own witness if left free. In 
moments when you lay your logic down, there 
shines above your head a bright and holy way, 
which prophets went, — and your feet are not 
tending towards it now. 

Our forty years past are like the Campania of 
Italy, south of Eome, dotted all over with the 
grim, pathetic ruins of things attempted but not 
finished ; finished but suffered to fall into decay, 
in the Christian life. Here stalks the broken 
aqueduct which once we built from the Foun- 
tain Head of truth to our thirsty souls. Its 
straggling arches, through which the showered 
plenty of heaven would run out as through a 
sieve, reproach us. Its temples, once dedicated 
to noble worship, have been quarried away 
for palaces of mammon. Its buttresses of de- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



3 



fence and high resolve are now but the play- 
grounds of strolling memories. Its beauty is 
but the beauty of ruin. Sometimes, in senti- 
mental mood, we go back to sit under the white 
light of the lazy sun, gazing down blue aisles 
of tottering walls whose very dust is motionless, 
whose scattered palms beyond hold their breath 
in the idle shimmer of this dead noon. " This 
wall was intended to run thus: this pillar to 
stand thus : here portico, atrium and penetralia, 
but" — and we sneer at ourselves, or laugh 
broadly, acknowledging our failure. Is it then 
hopeless ? With man it is impossible, but with 
God all things are possible, even the restoration 
of our ideals. 

Alone ! To wake out of dreams and, gazing 
round an empty room, wish one still were 
dreaming. To mark the companioned upon the 
public street and envy them. To feel propelled 
forth, as if by walking, walking, walking, as 
the homeless wind flies, one could get back his 
lost again. To gaze at a face — no, a profile, for 
a full face destroys the illusion — as the stage 



4 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



jolts many a block past your destination, till 
you must break the spell with "No. Never 
again in this world. Alone ! " To return at 
twilight, that hour of agony, and go on open- 
ing doors, as if the right door would yet be 
opened: to call out a name amid the echoing 
shadows of the dreary house, calling just as you 
once spake it — and shudder at your own rash- 
ness, and grow self-possessed again only with 
" I am alone ! " 

It is then one reads aright the words of Jesus, 
" Yet I am not alone, for the Father, He is with 
me." 

A mechanic having become a Christian re- 
solves that the w^hole superstructure of his life, 
from this moment of a Christly foundation, shall 
conform to the corner-stone. His vocation is 
surely not pretentious. He heads bolts; bolts 
in ships, bolts in bridges, bolts in railways; and 
heads them w^ell. Passed now long since into 
the heavens, can memory be destroyed, or self- 
consciousness disrupted? Do you tell me that 
Herod shall meet his life record, and not John 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



5 



Armstrong the blacksmith ? Shall Paine or 
Paul lament or rejoice over their earthly ca- 
reers, as they watch the growth and perpetuity 
of causes they set in motion, and not the book- 
keeper or the nursery-maid ! 

I had rather study a rose than a botany, a 
person than a theory about persons; doubtless 
the systematic knowledge is necessary, but the 
experimental is absolutely indispensable. The 
best text-book on mental metaphysics is my 
own and my neighbor's mind, for man is a liv- 
ing epistle known and read of all men who will 
open their eyes. There is to me a nameless 
charm in following Jesus Christ through a 
whole day's walk, work, and words, as we prob- 
ably can do several times by the New Testa- 
ment narrative, amid Galilean hills, on Perean 
mountains, or in the streets of J erusalem. 

A loving and wise mother could teach the 
blundering controversialists and harsh debat- 
ers of our times a finer skill than they have 



6 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



dreamed of. Her boy is headstrong and ill- 
bent ; but grown till lie can no longer be caught 
by the arm and bid to his room, a prisoner ; his 
stout feet can run away, so far away that death 
may claim him in the hospital of Singapore; 
he is not to be commanded " do this, asking no 
questions," for Eighteen Years asks many, and 
has theories of its own too, — the oddest sort of 
theories, maybe, which the wisdom of six thou- 
sand years has proved fallacious, but he has not. 
Now the woman who bore him argues not for 
the mere sake of getting the better of the argu- 
ment ; not she, for her object is to save her boy. 
She assembles no audience to show off her wit 
and sparkle at the poor lad's expense ; nor lays 
traps to anger her opponent that he may make 
himself ridiculous, as wily swordsmen at polem- 
ics do, crying, "A hit! a hit! Was not that a 
home-thrust? And now I'll gibbet him." But, 
kind heaven ! how does this lioness draw in her 
claws and tuft with softness the paw that cuffs 
the cub back into the lair again ! She seeks not 
to push him too far, and is frightened at her 
own boldness when she has out-debated him, 
lest she should have too deeply stabbed his 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



7 



pride, and so clings about his wounded heart 
with tears. She " corners him," to be sure, 
but with two such loving arms and kind, that, 
to remember that defeat at three-score years, is 
still to bless the gentle conqueror. She charges 
home and presses her advantage now, but, all 
the while, dear heart of skill, she would have 
him feel, not humiliated nor herself exalted, but 
asserts that he did it, the boy, lie determined to 
do right, to him be praise. 

This is true controversy — not to save your 
system, your party, your reputation, your argu- 
ment, but to save your man. In doing that you 
have saved your system and all the rest. 

When I was a boy there was no such sport 
as the rifle on Saturdays when school let us 
free. To follow a fox all the morning up hill 
and down dale, the cunning brute outwitting 
you— it was exultant to win the game of life 
and death at last. But instantly he's dead — 
regret. The graceful shape prone at your feet, 
and the brave little heart beating out its life- 
blood upon the heather snows — dead. What 



8 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



shall one do with a dead fox ? If I could have 
shot my fox dead and yet not hilled Mm ! How 
many a controversialist has felt, after the battle, 
I have brought down my man, — but I have a 
ruined man upon my hands. I have conquered, 
but lost a friend; destroyed the good name of 
my brother. Ah ! save your man, that's tri- 
umph; so that, when all's over, he greets you, 
convinced, living, working, hoping, and your 
skirts are clear of blood. 

I paint one of the bright ideal deeds of the 
Christian faith. Under dripping skies towards 
midnight, ringing at the hospital gate, praying 
for such strength and wisdom as may gird one 
well to meet the trying hours now coming 
within those frowning stones, pierced by twin- 
kling chamber lights ; softly, at the foot of the 
great entry stairs which lead up into regions of 
groan and agony; answering the white cap, 

"That friendless sailor whom I visited of late 
— sent for me." 

"Yes, dying; come." 

Along echoing corridors, into the great, bare 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



9 



room, past rows on rows of haggard sleepers, 
and who sleep not for pain, but turn upon the 
visitor with looks of invitation or despair; still 
scanning names adown the blank, white walls 
dimly shown in shadow ; bending down at 
length, 

"1 have come. You had to send for me this 
time." 

" Yes," gasped out upon a fetid breath. The 
reaching of an unnerved, wandering arm, till its 
hand falls clammy cold upon the warm palm 
of a living man. " Stay with me till I'm 
gone." 

Then to keep that vigil till the great eyes 
close and the weary breast is moveless, praying 
heaven for this stranger as if he were a brother 
of the blood, catching up the last word for who- 
soever — who ? — shall afterwards inquire, and 
stepping forth in the sunburst of the morning. 
— This to us is the meaning of Christianity. 
Nothing in all this world, man of the modern 
unbelief, not stalwart books of orthodox defend- 
ing, not mighty sermons true, not gorgeous 
spectacles of cathedral worship, nothing, by our 
own creed, is more truly Christ-like and betok- 



10 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



ening a Christian than such deeds as these. 
Who spoke it ever as our Founder spoke the 
lesson of sweet charity in the story of the Good 
Samaritan ? 

A nest of birdlings just out of egg, in the old 
door-yard tree, by its very defenceless innocence 
tempts the cruelty that lurks in boyish human 
nature, to climb, to harry, and to gloat with 
sense of power over its affrighting. But Inno- 
cence has a terrible revenge, when the mother 
bird w r ith plaint, not fighting, removes her nest, 
We were too wicked to be dwelt with, our 
mother said. 

In the numberless debates over truth or fact, 
who can forget the gentle self-respect with 
which some fond old saint bent the last look of 
astonishment and speechless pain upon our im- 
pudence — and left us. Left us to lash ourselves 
with memories of kindnesses forgotten in our 
heat, and of ten thousand kinder words in olden 
times, repaid in such base coin. Left us know- 
ing we had made a great heart bleed, and had 
naught to show for it, but our own red hands. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



11 



Left us desiring to be angry with him, but with 
no peg to hang our anger on; and hence hating 
ourselves, despising ourselves ; knowing that he 
ought to despise us, only, too good, he will pity 
us — and pity angers us the more. 

So Christ avenged Himself upon the inhospit- 
able Samaritans, when He left them " and went 
to another village." 

There are seasons, when, on account of at- 
mospheric conditions, the housekeeper is per- 
petually busy wiping off mould: mould on pict- 
ure-frames, on books, on the polished surfaces of 
upholstery. Mould is everywhere, on the trunks 
of garden trees and statuary; and, sprung up in 
a night, unsightly fungus amid the beds of flow- 
ers, or peeping from the interstices of splendid 
wall -stones. It reminds one of those mental 
atmospheres which at times seem to us to be 
settling Decay over all human effort, and fond 
hopes. Lately we have been oppressed with 
the thought, "How useless is it to plan! I am 
sixty years old; the remnant of life is noth- 
ing/* Or, if only thirty, life seems strangely 



12 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



uncertain and brief, as it never has before. 
Which way we look we see mould. 

It may be a friend's sudden and premature 
death has occasioned the sensation. It may be 
the Spirit of God. 

Some strong wills cast off this gloom through 
sheer natural vigor ; some endure till the cloud 
passes, as sour north-east weather is endured. 
But some there are who trample on this sad- 
ness with the faith which claims continued ex- 
istence and unbroken living, through the Christ 
who was dead but is alive again, and living for 
evermore. 

There is a changeless tendency of events to 
set themselves right, as time passes, in spite 
of us, if we have attempted to set them wrong. 
We may have seized a present moment and 
sought to detain it, as a man might seek to 
hold a brooklet just issuing from its highland 
spring. Knowing it must go rushing down 
into the valley of the future, we yet essay to 
dam it up by false representations, by twigs 
of sinful agreements. "You do thus, and you 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



13 



thus. And never, never, tell any mortal man 
the secret. To be sure water ought to run 
down hill: but we can change the course of 
nature. To be sure our convenience is wicked, 
but it must be suited for this once." We cast 
into the dam silver and gold and mud and la- 
bors, nay, our very souls, after all to find that 
inanimate nature is morally pure. While we 
look, the sweet rains of heaven, and ever gen- 
tlest dews work against us. The majestic truth 
will have its own way. Our house is whelmed 
in the flood. 

By the time a youth has reached the years 
of active life, he has met one honest friend, — in- 
animate nature. Fire will burn the bare hand, 
every time. Air, water, light, and brown earth, 
speak the truth to him, whatever men may say, 
or attempt to make these elements, for a passing 
moment, say. The reason is that inanimate 
things obey God exactly. They are the expres- 
sion of His thoughts. And future events are 
largely dependent upon the functions of the 
material world. 



14 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 

Stepping forth these spring mornings, I am 
everywhere saluted with heavenly perfumes. 
Will any man tell me what perfume is? The 
scholar has tried: but he knows not. I know 
not ; but whence it comes I know. It is from 
these clouds of apple-blossoms and fruit-bearers 
all, which seem — these clouds — as if fallen from 
the skies, and strangely earth-anchored. They 
stretch their downy shapes like arms of softest 
dalliance, on which one longs to cast himself for 
grand repose. But the fragrance is most won- 
derful. It must be welcome to Deity, like the 
sweet-smelling savor of ancient sacrifice. When 
I smell it I know my God is trying to say some- 
thing to me. It is a "Good-morning, my child." 
It is His kiss. His gesture of love poured out 
upon His children from the lips of inanimate 
things. It is His breath upon my cheek, so 
near does He come to me. It is not grossly 
obtrusive — like what one gets from conservato- 
ries, bouquets, and garments, which from very 
abundance offends ; but this of the fields is deli- 
cate and coy. It comes — and w r hile you look 
for its source it is gone upon the zephyrs. It 
comes again, and plays around you, like the 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 15 



attentions of a refined and noble friendship, 
which, is never impudently curious and famil- 
iar, but offers just enough interference with 
your life to increase its happiness. It is a 
type of "special Providence," which enters into 
our life-work just enough to cheer and keep 
us from falling; but never officiously doing all, 
so that we be encouraged in shiftless depend- 
ence and idleness. 

Observe how free, large and unconfined is the 
beauty of June. Are not these attributes of 
Deity ? My neighbor has kept, all winter long, 
his conservatory window crowded full of flowers 
that look upon the public street. It must cost 
him something. Why does he not shut them 
up to his own use ? He could not. Every 
flower would cry, " Are you not ashamed, when 
we are so beautiful that we ought to be seen by 
all ! " A man can be selfish w^ith beefsteak, but 
if he have but a handful of flowers they must 
be seen and admired. As well think to shut 
up God. 

This voice is now everywhere, telling of 



16 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



Deity, the Unselfish, the Non-respecter of per- 
sons. The hillsides beyond the stockade speak 
to the prisoner. The lilacs are come out by 
the well-sweep of the northern farmhouse. The 
stump -lot burnt -piece of the frontiersman is 
flushing all over with the clover. The table- 
cloth patch of the switchman's wife is smiling 
with beauty to the rocky patch of the flagman's 
wife at the south end of the tunnel — who would 
have thought the great God would descend to 
plant there? The laborer, returning from noi- 
some refineries whose coarse odors have stifled 
his senses all day, is saluted, as he walks past 
the rich man's grounds, with "Good-evening, 
good man. God give you sleep to-night. I 
am the breath of the May flowers come over 
the wall to say that my Maker is thy Maker. 
Thy God and my God wishes you well. If God 
so clothe the grass of the field — " and he plods 
on his way repeating the glad refrain, " If 
God so clothe the grass of the field." 

Who could mistake this voice which is abroad 
these days, even had not Christ interpreted for 
us the speech of the lilies? Something is in 
the winds and the still air, in the long flashing 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



17 



hours of sunlight lingering where the night has 
been, in the verdure so vigorous that wilder- 
nesses bloom as well as pampered lawns, tell- 
ing the lonely of a companionship wide as the 
wide world ; telling the sick they shall be well 
in this warmth ; telling the disheartened of hope 
as broken boughs sprout anew ; telling the un- 
clean of a purity as fresh as the flower that 
springs from a dunghill; telling the bereaved 
of a resurrection, for the frozen December sods 
above the grave are knitting their cut edges 
and pulsing with life. 

Paul evangelized the then civilized world by 
striking the great cities. He recognized their 
power. As Paris is France, so was Antioch 
Phoenicia. Derbe and Lystra in Lycaonia were 
what Cleveland is in Northern Ohio or Chicago 
to the Northwest. Paul took all Greece by the 
two forks of the beard at Athens and Corinth. 
Neither time nor strength allowed him to ap- 
proach the pagani, the rural districts : but they 
were left to the missionary zeal of the great 
metropolitan churches. Great cities have char- 



18 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



acters as distinct as men. The spirit of Sparta, 
of Carthage is warlike instead of esthetic like 
Athens: Babylon and modern Paris sensuous 
instead of commercial like London. It would 
not be difficult to characterize New York. As 
the color of a lamp shade determines the tints of 
a room, so the moral, intellectual, and religious 
complexion of America is largely determined 
by the dominant spirit of its great cities. The 
grandest churches, the most munificent chari- 
ties, the loftiest conception of commercial hon- 
or should be found in the metropolis. As the 
worst of bad people are found there, so ought 
the best of the good. The frontier preacher 
can not bear to think that the believers of the 
great city are any thing else but thrifty, har- 
monious, doing great things for the denomina- 
tion : it is enough that he is straitened. 

The city must be generous. Thousands, over 
the land, are praying for the pious young busi- 
ness man, standing in his focus of opportunity. 
Over against the corruption with which the bad 
city disturbs legislation in the interest of sin, I 
put the benevolence of the good city, dotting 
the hillsides and valleys with churches and 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



19 



schools. Young Christian men should appre- 
ciate what it is to live in Jerusalem, set upon a 
hill not to be hid. 

The drawing-master throws down before his 
pupil the Head of Christ. 

" But the term ends in two weeks," the maid 
objects. 

"True. What of that?" 

" Can I finish this head in that time ? " 

" No. You will only begin. But are you not 
intending to graduate? You will begin, next 
term, where you leave off now." 

The great God knows she will never return, 
for she has not three weeks to live. Yet does 
He interrupt her? Kather, looking on, He is 
pleased, if she be His child; for The Beautiful 
is one of the employments of eternity. 

We assent to this, when we think of the pious 
artist's death, the believing scientist's, the theo- 
logian's; but we find it hard to project a life, 
schooled in banks and factories, into that eter- 
nal employ. May we not however be sure that 
the character developed in every earth-school 



20 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



will remain? The workbench and pulpit we 
shall not take with us, but the love, faith, hope, 
fidelity, and devotion which the workbench and 
pulpit wrought in character will remain, the 
tools to be set to work on nobler tasks forever. 
The final cause of this short life seems to be, 
not the completion of tasks, but proficiency, 
that we may learn the use of ourselves for an 
endless life. We are like the apprentice who 
is bid go slowly yet surely, not concerning him- 
self about finishing the flower he cuts on some 
gable stone. Only let him do well what he 
does. Often the beloved task is snatched away 
at the very moment of our greatest proficiency, 
or the artisan himself is bid go up higher, his 
plan half done. The missionary must return, at 
the very moment of greatest success. The child 
is taken from us, just as we were beginning to 
understand our work upon the delicate spirit. 
But we shall, some far-off day, unpack the uten- 
sils fitted to our hands that hour of disappoint- 
ment, and perhaps disused thereafter till death, 
in the presence of noble labors rising by the 
Jasper Sea. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 21 



A strong man is sleeping prone upon his bed, 
when the children are sent in to awaken him. 
One whispers in his ears, at which the prostrate 
frame turns uneasily, but no more. Another 
assails him with a feather plucked from beneath 
his head; and more turnings, though he sleeps. 
Now they weight him, with downy things piled 
high. Tossing, turning, staring, rubbing the 
eyes, the giant shall yet wake to knowledge 
and strength again. It is this old world. Let 
the young believe it, it can not rest under sin. 
It is restless till it has cast forth to exposure 
every evil deed trampling it, and vindicated all 
virtuous things. The earth groaneth, the con- 
stitution of things is in pain, till Christ reigns. 

I have imagined an artist with whom the 
world has gone hard — indeed I know him 
through my friend — alone, old and starving. 
Shorter and shorter he breaks his last crust. 
Crumb by crumb he eats it. It is gone. Stand- 
ing by a street corner in December, the third 
day without food — " I must have bread or die." 
Out from a rubbish pile of the studio a canvas. 



22 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



A New Hampshire boy, he paints a Thanksgiv- 
ing dinner. Flash on flash go colors. The old 
room, fireplace, crane; the steaming pot, the 
logs ablaze — and he so cold! The well-spread 
board ; and now the chairs, and in each chair a 
guest, brother, sister, mother, the old sire; all 
filled but his one seat. How he bends him over 
that limned bounty, till skilful color and rare 
touch make seamed cakes to crack wide open, 
and deceive the hand that paints almost into 
grasping ! 

Then settling back the poor wretch gazed 
upon his picture, till he fell asleep exhausted. 
Subsequent days finished the sketch and hung 
it on a good friend's wall, where you may see 
it now. It did bring bread. If it were mine, 
I would write beneath the text it so startlingly 
illustrates, "My father has bread and to spare, 
while I perish with hunger." For so do weary, 
hungry men paint heaven to themselves, by 
faith. 

Riding with my friend, a young physician, 
my attention was called to a sombre-looking 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



23 



pile, under the leafage of the city's outskirts, a 
hospital for contagious diseases. He said, "It 
is a grand place ! I have spent many happy 
hours there." He was a genuine healer, born 
and not made, and that place of hideous disease 
was the opportunity for the wrestlings of skill 
and victory. 

A true Christian ought thus to feel regard- 
ing want, sorrow, ignorance, and sin. An op- 
portunity towards which his heart leaps with 
delight — that he may cure. 

I have lain upon a river bank above a cata- 
ract and fall, where waters were as yet un- 
ruffled, moving swiftly, softly under willows, 
plaited in graceful curves about great roots, 
now foaming into lace around my immersed 
hand. Looking away down where the torrent 
becomes tumultuous, plunging, quivering, loud- 
ly shouting, and beyond where the lip of the 
fall meets the sky of mists, I dip up a handful 
of the flood. "Oh, drops of water, you real- 
ize nothing of what is before you. I wonder 
whether this drop, or this, will lie at the bot- 



24 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



torn of the unsunned caverns curdling cold and 
imprisoned long: and which will rise beaten 
into spray that the sun may make perpetual 
rainbows. I release you. Go back and go on 
to find your fate," and they are shaken from the 
finger-tips. 

So goeth the race of man into Futurity — Eter- 
nity. Who realizes what it was to have been 
born into this world? Who foresees the spec- 
tacles yet to be revealed along the existence 
line of the human soul, what excitements over- 
powering, what shock of splendors or of dreads ? 
Who dare go on alone? Yet we must go on 
and ever. How careless are the multitude who, 
filled with the diversions of the present, risk, 
thoughtless, the grand eternities ! 

This very moment, of Sabbath eve, when he 
should be in church, a merchant is seated in his 
parlor, studying a miniature balance sheet from 
his pocket, with a view to Monday morning. 
" Stock and cash on hand so much. Bills re- 
ceivable and payable so much." But that is not 
all: he has certain intangible wealth. Credit, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



25 



and good will, respect of his fellow-men and 
friendships for a dark day, how ranch? It is 
impossible to compute. While he is figuring 
here, a hundred miles away an aged matron, 
too feeble for church, sits by starlit windows 
of the rural cottage, her soft eyes still beauti- 
ful with the holy fire of mother's love, think- 
ing of her children, and praying for this man, 
her bearded boy. That is wealth also. How 
much? Sumless. His pencil can not compute 
the wealth of a mother's prayers. 

The bullrush, the " Bayonet -rush," for in- 
stance, on the lowlands of eastern Massachu- 
setts, is a jointed stalk. Why do these joints 
form, every inch and a quarter ? Is it acci- 
dent ? Bather, every circumstance of nature 
conspires to say, "Now you have had so much 
moisture from soil, and basilar salts, so much 
June sunshine and rain, so many hours. It is 
time to form a joint." It is formed; and then 
on again the upward growth. Looking back 
upon life, it appears to man made up of joints 
— a series of even and uneventful years, and 



26 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



then a crisis. Another unmarked period, and 
again a joint. Reviewing the past one can 
now detect the silent conspiracy of calm, un- 
vexed forces in the commonplace periods, ma- 
turing under the hand of nature's God. I pre- 
fer to think God rules me by law, rather than 
leaves me to accident. 

Among the fog-clouds of this evening, high 
over the city roofs wag the iron fingers of City 
Hall clock. They divide the day into general 
periods convenient enough for all. It is nine 
o'clock to me, listlessly peering through the 
gray curtain, and time to go home; twelve 
hours more and it is time for banks to open 
and schools to assemble. But within this dwell- 
ing here they look at the mantel clock say- 
ing, "It is nine o'clock and he draws his first 
breath." The other side of the street, they look 
at their mantel clock and say, "Nine o'clock 
and he breathes his last." To one a careless 
hour, to another an hour of joy, to another of 
woe. We can not afford to go by the public 
time -piece. It is the mantel clock, of each 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



27 



man's times and seasons, which must govern 
him. It is time for me to iaugh; but for you 
to weep. Do not go you by my times. God 
gives you your own. See that you recognize 
them. It is time for the nervous youth to stop 
drinking. Never mind what the time-piece of 
his gay set is saying, or what others can en- 
dure; he must stop, within a month, or die. 
The overworked merchant had best consult his 
own times. He has reached the limit of his 
endurance : never mind what other men can en- 
dure. It is time for you to economize ; let your 
associates live in what style they will. It is 
time for you to repent, though the churches may 
be as cold and unrevived as November pastures. 
How foolish is he who goes by the public time ! 

Two laborers start in at the edge of the grow- 
ing corn as the sun starts upon the day's jour- 
ney. Side by side they swing their hoes till 
noon, till night. Each has earned the same 
wage. Side by side they stand at the gate, 
under the evening amber night, as the farmer 
opens his purse. One declines his pay. 



28 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



" Why ? You have merited it ? " 

"Yes; and I have no particular reason, save 
a freak of passing fancy. Still I will not re- 
ceive it." 

That is a mind diseased. Far from admiring 
him, you pity the poor fellow on whom the 
sun's rays may have fallen too hotly. 

But now he speaks again. 

" Give my dues to my fellow- workman, for 
he has a wife and three, and is half sick, while 
I am single and a giant in health." 

Instantly, the scene is changed, from the ruin 
to the highest exercise of mind ; from being an 
act incapable of rational explanation, to one only 
capable of the most exalted explanation. And 
when the good heart adds, " I am satisfied," all 
good hearts and wise heads respond, "To be sure. 
He has his reward." Hence as love is the high- 
est form of intelligence, so is it the highest form 
of justice. He who has surrendered his lawful 
dues for the sake of an intelligent love, has not 
defrauded self. The educated girl w T hose heart 
prompts her to become a missionary has not 
acted contrary to reason, but above reason. 
The new dwelling deferred because of a heavy 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 29 



subscription to hospital or church is not robbery 
of self. The Christ, once rich, yet for our sakes 
poor, sets a new rule of just treatment of self 

Care can not be " rolled off" on to the ground, 
or " given to the winds," or "cast" into the sea, 
or drowned in a cup. There is only one dis- 
posal, aside from bearing it one's self, which a 
sane mind can make of a care. It may be given 
to a living person, your friend or God. For a 
care is something that needs sentient attention 
of mind, either your own or another's. The will 
may adjourn, or despair may abandon ; but these 
are different escapes from that a mother makes 
when, sitting by the child's bedside in its sick- 
ness, counting the days it takes a steamer to 
come from Liverpool, hearing at length a strong 
step upon the stair, she casts all her care on her 
husband, and sleeps just in time to save life. 
Waking with a start, she satisfies her mind with 
the thought, "His father is there. He takes 
the care." Oh ! that men could learn the possi- 
bility of this surrender of care to the all-capable 
Caretaker, while they rest. 



30 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 

A few days ago, on that busiest corner of the 
city, where at three o'clock of afternoons the 
pavement swarms with walking wealth, and 
fashion storms her own bazars, a woman was 
arrested, as we read, for theft. It comes out 
that she is a professional thief; that people were 
living lazy lives upon her thievings, herself con- 
senting. She was a broom to sweep up crumbs 
for them. And she had beauty, and gray hairs, 
and all crimes, and children. Not every day, 
oh, no, for sin is hardening, but on some rare 
better day betimes it came to her to pause and 
muse upon the passers by her. " Yonder wo- 
man, look! A sister woman. She has fallen 
into kindly hands. She is some good man's 
fond wife and good. Her carriage-door clicks 
proudly. She needs not but be good. How 
they all care for her. She is innocent. That 
is righteousness. I ! Oh ! God — that I was 
like her." 

Could my voice reach her? " Arise and re- 
turn to the Father's house. There is bread 
without sin. And One who cares for you." 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



31 



No age has excelled our own in adoring the 
idols of the senses. The wines of the club, how 
glowingly are their merits discussed by the oc- 
cidental voluptuary. The skill of a cook, more 
priceless than the rarest volume or the noblest 
charity of the town. 

Then at evening follow the modern "wor- 
shipper of the creature more than the Creator." 
The brilliant amphitheatre sparkling with pris- 
matic flame; the elegant crush and hurry of 
patrician company mustering to the sound of 
orchestra; the music itself light, sensuous, pas- 
sionate, Offenbach and not Mendelssohn; dress, 
maddening in its splendor. A thousand fans 
now beat the balmy air. Perfume intoxicates. 
The heat quickens the blood of youth, and — 
there ! Oh ! at last again before the flashing 
footlights, a radiant form, the idol of the town, 
w r hose picture is everywhere. In southern Eu- 
rope they call it Diva, the divine one. Sus- 
ceptible women weep behind their fans, w^hile 
others burn with envy. Impressible young men 
hold their breath, lean forward and sate their 
eyes in one long thirsty gaze. The sorrows of 
a life-time drown in that gaze. When did these 



32 



ARE THESE THINGS SOP 



ever direct such, look of infinite veneration upon" 
the Son of God? And now at point of ecstasy, 
the whole vast throng rise up in wild, crazed 
shout that makes the lamps tremble in the 
dome. Tell me, what is this but worship ? 
What more will they bestow on the Creator? 
It is the dream of many a night. It claims 
costliest offerings laid at the feet of the idol 
like dust, from many an " unknown, but who 
adores." 

The worship of the creature means death. 
The young girl will not be instructed, infatu- 
ated with a face and form without a soul, till the 
demon, mockingly stroking the curling whis- 
ker, deserts her among strangers to die. The 
wife, inexplicable mystery, forsakes the cradle 
by the hearth, to fly, a fanatic in this unhal- 
lowed worship. The husband, faithless, follows 
a fair shape possessed of seven devils to torment 
him, over land and sea, spurning every sacred 
tie, worshipping the physical. It is best that 
one worship not even an angel, as John was 
about to do when warned that "he do it not, 
but worship God." 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



The managers of Sunday excursions and oth- 
er mausements seek to shelter themselves under 
the example of Christ, who said it was lawful to 
save a life, to heal, to do well upon the Sabbath 
day. True the moral quality of an action re- 
sides in the intent. Picture the Board of Direc- 
tors of a corporation contemplating the infringe- 
ment of the letter of the Sabbath, assembled for 
deliberation. They constitute a benevolent in- 
stitution, do they, and not a commercial ? Much 
is said of the distressed condition of the tene- 
ment-house poor, of fainting infancy, and nursing 
mothers ? It is seriously proposed to transport 
these weary ones gratuitously; and, to complete 
the charity of saving life and doing good, to 
feed the hungry on the shore, but most reluc- 
tantly some things must be left for another year 
when funds are greater. These benefactors en- 
large upon the mental culture of an hour by 
the "gray and melancholy waste" of ocean? 
They stir each other up with holy intent of 
moral elevation and true religious education by 
landscape, rock, and shore, ministered to such 
neglected masses as the churches can not reach? 
This and only this is the motive, to save life, to 



♦ 



34 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



do well — at fifty cents for the round trip — and 
they separate with a hymn and benediction. 

One is forced to respect the honesty of the 
man who frankly avows "My purpose is gain; 
just that and nothing more." But one has 
nothing but contempt for the weak-kneed hy- 
pocrisy which seeks to cloak greed under the 
sacred mantle of Him who, as he would pull an 
ox from a pit, so rescued man from suffering 
at the expense of His cross. 

In a garden you have flowers, shrubbery, 
fruit-trees, and vines. The flowers differ from 
the vines ; but in quite another sense they differ 
from weeds. If you tell me you prefer fruit cul- 
ture rather than flower beds in your garden, I 
am not surprised. But if you prefer thistles, it 
seems strange. In a church there must ever 
be all varieties of character, in one sense. The 
man all intellect, and the man all affections; 
the poet and the practical; the strong in spir- 
itual apprehension, and the weak of faith. But 
all ought to give unmistakable evidence that 
they are not the unchanged weeds which spring 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 35 



out of the ground from no planting save poor 
fallen nature's hand. Whom Christ has re- 
ceived we are to receive, and those only. 

Out in the wilderness the guide sinks down 
at length, and faints at the head of the cara- 
van. Lying there, it is hard to be derided. 
Ho! a guide who is no guide, for he has lost 
the way! Up! on! And heavy hands pluck 
at him ; heavy sandals kick him. This is very 
pitiful ; but he must up, and on, or all are 
lost. The members of the Christian Church 
are guides in the moral progress of their times. 
If one falls in the market-place, he is spurned 
to be sure by wicked feet and hailed with de- 
rision. It may be very grievous to be so harsh- 
ly judged. Yet he is to expect nothing else. 
He is a guide. He must up and forward. 
" Can not ? " That is not the word. It is 
must u He knows not the way to succeed in 
business and preserve the highest standard of 
commercial honor ? " He is to find the way to 
the last, no matter about the first; for he is a 
pathfinder. " He will die ! " Alas, then peace 



36 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



to his ashes and heaven for his soul; but liv- 
ing he must lead. The Church can not fol- 
low in ethics. It can not be taught, but must 
teach. Nay, the Christian must not die. He 
must go to the Infinite Fountain, the Way, the 
Truth and the Life, and live, the most exalted 
exponent of right and justice between man and 
man. Neither God nor the world will suffer the 
professor of religion to walk anywhere but at 
the forefront in matters of common morality. 
It is well. 

In the United States Patent Office are lines on 
lines of models, so many of them of no use. Im- 
practicable. Who ever heard of them worked 
out into real use to man? Guide, take us to 
some famous model, reposing here in dust of 
years, which has been realized in actual life, 
the seed-thought of some grand mechanism fa- 
miliar to us all. I can understand how a cer- 
tain cast of mind becomes disgusted with hu- 
man creeds. It exclaims, Theory! Who has 
ever lived out your covenant? Friend, if you 
be honest in this objection, it must bring you 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 37 



joy to find that Christianity began, not with a 
formulary, but with a Life; and the words of 
that Life but explained what its deeds meant. 
Surely you will bow before the living Christ. 

The stubble of last year, whitening the fields, 
is not the hope of the farmer's eyes; but the 
countless spires of young green, lying like a 
soft mat beneath, and pushing the stubble out 
of the way. A respectable aged man, who is 
a " Publican *and Sinner" is a relict of indescrib- 
able sadness. In the markets youth is pushing 
up behind, wanting his place, not him. The 
Church and charities, which might now have 
engaged his priceless counsels, he has never 
learned to love. The hope which could say, 
"Come on! oh young world. I'm soon for a 
better ! " he has never cherished. His hand 
tears off hardly from the grasp on this world. 
Long habits of criticism have ripened into sour- 
ness. The voices which once prayed for him 
have long since grown silent in death, and he 
has never taught his children to pray. The sol- 
itude of age ! Go into the churches to-night, 



38 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



and hear all appeals addressed to the young. 
If, sir, you were a lad of fourteen years, suf- 
fering the bereavements that you do, a score of 
hands would beckon you to the Sabbath-school, 
and to Christ. But your locks are white and 
thin. Your opinions are supposed to be fixed. 
The church are afraid of you, and you are left 
alone. 

And yet who were they whom Christ called 
about Him in the inception of His work? not 
youth, but men and women in the hard realities 
of mature life. Matthew and Peter, well-known 
business men of the port of Capernaum ; Luke, 
a physician probably already in practice. All 
the apostles were men full grown and ripened. 
Paul a scholar, later on, fully entered upon his 
professional career; Cornelius was not a youth. 
Women, who were wives and mothers, followed 
Him. It was a manly faith, spoken by manly 
lips, to the hearts of men. If He were here to- 
day, you would not hesitate to express to Christ 
the heart-sickness of a man's disappointed life. 

TTould it be offensive in a younger man, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



39 



mindful of his decrepitude to come, here and 
now to step forth reverently, offering to steady 
the hand of age upon its staff, saying, " My fa- 
ther, my older brother, Christ sat with Publi- 
cans and Sinners. It is not yet too late, shall 
we not seek Him ? They that are whole need 
not a physician, but they that are sick." 

That poor working girl at the fair, standing 
before the exhibit of diamonds, looks down at 
her own ring, a paste imitation : then casts fur- 
tive glances of comparison to the cheap trinket 
upon the finger of her friend. If that friend's 
paste were a whit larger than her own paste 
she would be angered with envy. But before 
that huge brilliant in the show-case, such as 
she never saw before, and genuine, she is lost 
in admiration. Not a hateful feeling in the 
mind. It is too great and grand for aught but 
admiration. 

Before a human character better than our 
own we are often assailed with malicious jeal- 
ousy, envy and the hate of criticism. It is a 
fellow -man! How comes he with a purity 



40 



ARE THESE THINGS SO f 



above us? But before Christ, the soul loses 
all malevolence, and is lost in worship. He is 
out of the sphere of possible rivalry. He is too 
grand for aught but adoration. 

Did you observe at the Centennial Exhibition, 
the groups of homespun, plain housewives per- 
petually crowding around the display of House- 
hold Decorations? From their frugal, toilful 
lives amid the mountains, they had never seen 
such hangings, such gorgeous fittings of lavish- 
ment. They had read of them in fiction, and all 
had had the fine feminine dream, vainly essayed 
with such simple and pathetic means as honest 
economy could afford. But all this, now actual- 
ly before their eyes, is so unmistakably real ! so 
exquisite — that cornice for instance, that ebony 
mantel — that the mind finds its ideal, its dreams 
realized in actual state. Let them take it all in, 
and carry home to copy, while they live, from 
memory. There can hardly be a soul so de- 
based but Christ is to it the realization of an old 
ideal, supposed to have been hopeless. He is 
"the piece which was lost." He is the purity, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 41 



the nobility, the grandeur dreamed about, but 
never met elsewhere. And He is more than the 
complement of our dreams, — a revelation. 

I confess to you that, standing, in the ardent 
days of youth, amid those vast crowds which 
wept over the murdered President of the Eepub- 
lic, as his remains were slowly proceeding to 
their western grave, I trembled lest I verged 
upon a forbidden adoration of a human being. 
Such sobs were in the air, such homage of 
muffled drums and minor strains from dead 
marches, such lofty panegyrics, but most of all 
such knockings of my own heart demanding 
voice, that decency cried halt, recalling that the 
public mind was at the very summer solstice 
about the altars of adoration. It is a terrible 
craving of the soul — this homage to a saviour. 
The mass are defenceless, are groping in the 
dark, are slow of intellect and selfish at heart, 
A defender with a torch, with brilliant mental 
gifts and apparent love for us is a price] ess 
boon. His person is dearer to us than our life 
itself. I can understand the Greek and Koman 



42 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



apotheosis: the blind infatuation of 'the Swedes 
for Charles the Xllth. The former had never 
heard of the Son of man. The latter had lost 
sight of Him. Now with J esus Christ the Pat- 
tern Man I am restrained by no prohibition. 
Looking upon Him I may give free rein to my 
soul. Bow down to this Person, kiss His feet of 
flesh and blood, adore the grand spirit. It is 
more than permitted. It is duty. Duty dies, 
giving birth to privilege. They who unhitch 
the horses from the carriage of an illustrious 
man blush, in cooler moments, to remember 
themselves dragging at its traces. If Christ 
Jesus walked these streets, I should have no 
after-thoughts of shame had I rapturously flung 
my garments upon the stones He trod. I re- 
fuse, with a shudder, to kneel on the Soman 
pavement with the populace at sight of papal 
processions ; but if Jesus of Nazareth were pass- 
ing by, at this curb I might remain bowed, with 
clasped hands, till the Holy Form faded out of 
sight. This loyalty to the person of Christ is 
the grand passion of the disciples in every age. 
The love of Christ constraineth us. No earthly 
love parallels it: not the as yet untarnished af- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 43 



fection of youth for youth, worshipping the very 
ground on which the beloved treads ; not eighty 
years sitting opposite eighty years, wiping dim 
spectacles and thinking of all the years which 
no words can depict to the old soul-mate; not 
the whirlwind of ecstasy with which the young 
mother clasps the precious form of her first- 
born. All of this and more may the saint be- 
stow upon his Saviour. It is the one dream of 
life to see Him as He is above, and be satisfied 
alone with the Chief among ten thousand, and 
altogether lovely. 

I watched a colony of ants, beneath my ham- 
mock constructing their abode, twenty minutes, 
thirty minutes, two hours. When the edifice 
was finished to the last capstone granule, I 
dropped a pebble down upon its dome, and 
stooped to look again. The workmen's stark 
surprise, the hasty muster of the settlement, the 
consultation swift and prompt decision, these I 
saw. They throw a hundred arms about the 
rock, and fail. Then, mark you, they excavate 
beneath and, leaping on it, sink it. Then a 



44 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



thousand ready hands pile up again the grace- 
ful dome with all its former symmetry. 

Then I wondered, and called others. These 
tiny creatures had built for us an altar there, 
to the strange, the Unknown God, whose line 
has gone out through all the earth. We wor- 
shipped there. 

Men say that down these aisles is the way to 
altars. So say I, reverencing the Church. But, 
to one who will look and think, where shall his 
path lie on earth which leads not to altars sa- 
cred unto God? 

Over the grave of Jesus Christ they erected 
no costly Stone which should keep a pyramid's 
watch upon the plains of time; no bronze of 
regal attitude; no temple made with hands. 
But they planted this — a monumental cere- 
mony, meeting to remember Him with chas- 
tened joy and holy festival of worship, saying, 
"It is the Lord's Day." Children should be 
taught to cherish Sunday as they would the 
headstones of their fathers. Aye, and more, for 
this is the day that saw Him rise. It marks 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



45 



the spot where He lay, but where He lies no 
longer. It testifies, more eloquent than point- 
ing hand or mortuary marbles, "He is risen." 

Upon the upper waters of the Connecticut, 
where the river breaks through gates of green 
and granite mountains there is a spot of echoes. 
One might shout and send his call a mile away, 
to yonder bluff, and sharply clear it would re- 
turn again, along the sedgy meadows and the 
placid stream. A fit place for one to train the 
voice he some time meant to use in Gospel invi- 
tations, for such a test taught skill and health. 
To shout a noble text for the listening earth and 
hear the echo send it back, was to deceive 
one's self that the great hills beyond had some- 
how heard and answered from their cloud- 
capped peaks, 

"Come, and come quickly." 

"Whosoever will, let him come." 

As if the very air was full of unseen speakers. 
One could keep that word, come, bounding back 
and forth like a silver shuttle, bearing golden 
thread, weaving heaven and earth together. 



46 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



At length the river bank grows spectral, un- 
earthly, in the twilight ; and a boy would troll 
a roulade to reinstate this prosy world again. 

It has been thought that that startling repe- 
tition of the invitation which is recorded on the 
New Testament's last page was in reality an 
interchange of ecstatic longing. The revela- 
tor cries, in view of all he had foreseen, " Come, 
Lord Jesus." The Holy Spirit answers, "Come." 
The Church with eager patience echoes, "Come," 
and all w^ho hear are directed to repeat the cry. 
Then Christ replies from out the heavens, hun- 
gry for the lost man's return, "Come ye, who- 
soever will." The air was palpitating with that 
word, as John stood upon the mountain-top of 
vision. 

Sinner, it is the pausing for you that keeps 
the longing Church and Christ from clasping 
the eternal reunion. It is till the Gentiles are 
brought in that these twain are waiting. 

An aged man sat this afternoon in his arm- 
chair, and, taking the spectacles from his eyes, 
fell asleep, in the rays of the setting sun. As 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



47 



he slept he dreamed his youth over again. The 
spectacles fell out of his fingers to the floor, and 
he dreamed that they belonged to an old man 
at whose knee he had only been playing with 
them. His dull hearing restored, caught again 
the voices of his little children, some of them 
from earth long gone. Again he sat at table 
•where every sort of food had for him good 
relish ; while at the foot of the board, as plain as 
day — suggested doubtless by the picture on the 
wall — the young mother of his brood, the quaint 
old teaset then almost as new as a wedding 
present, under her fair, round arms. Again he 
strode forth to his work, without crutch or staff, 
a man among men. Oh ! what air-drawn vi- 
sions of far-away youth sometimes recur to age. 

He wakes, and rubs his eyes, and is alone and 
old. Straightening the stiff and tottering legs, 
he goes, adjusting his glasses, to gaze upon 
her picture on the twilight-shadowed wall — a 
dream. 

Yet this is the figure the Psalmist uses to de- 
pict the forgiveness of sins. It is a renewing 
of youth, unto bones waxed old through sense 
of guilt. Especially is it such to advanced age. 



48 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



The least of its effects are those upon the body ; 
yet it brightens the countenance, erects the car- 
riage, warms the palm and opens it. It is bet- 
ter than medicine to have become at peace with 
God. It restores and sweetens memory. One 
is no longer afraid to remember, since broken 
vows and dishonored pleadings from beloved 
lips are no longer accusers. There is no longer 
a lion of ancient crime in the path. The affec- 
tions and intellect receive new life. It is be- 
ginning life over again, for three-score years 
and ten is a babe in Christ. Old things are 
passed away and all become new. Best of all, 
it contains the promise of eternal youth in the 
land beyond the grave. 

Speaking of cares — the strongest, grandest 
natures feel them most. Cut a worm in two, 
and both ends will crawl off. In higher organ- 
isms vitality is more vulnerable. After forty 
years of life a great heart and capable brain are 
loaded with countless cares. He is a true son 
caring for aged parents; a brother interested for 
the companions of his cradle; a husband and 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 49 



father with the cares these words imply; a busi- 
ness partner on whose integrity many depend ; 
a citizen whom school boards and municipal 
committees claim ; an administrator of his dead 
friend's estate, with widow and orphan looking 
to his sagacity ; a manager of charitable institu- 
tions; a burden-bearer in his church; a coun- 
sellor to a world of acquaintances who from the 
earth's end sue for his kind wisdom. His days 
are full, evenings broken, even nights employed. 
Oh ! to be such a man, on whom human society 
feeds as if he were bread ! 

It is such men in their strength who cry out, 
" ! Lord ! We know not how we became so 
loaded. But here we stand, and plead thy 
promise; casting all our care on thee, for thou 
carest for us." 

Much more then, the weak and helpless claim 
the privilege. The work-girl, in the gray of the 
morning, puts back the cap from the aged moth- 
er s head yet on the pillow, and holding that 
dear face between her thin, brave hands, speaks 
good cheer, "For He careth for us, and this 
week shall match the rent with my wages." 

On the stairs of the tenement house, rudely ac- 
4 



50 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



costed, she shrinks into herself with the thought, 
"He careth for me." On the street, meeting 
another like-minded and older, they walk five 
blocks out of their way, that her companion 
may throw a kiss at the window of the public 
nursery where she has loaned her child while a 
widow earns her loaf, and both say, " He careth 
for us." In the dusty defilements of the factory 
their eyes often meet wdth glance that reassures 
as it seems to repeat, " He careth for us." On 
the ferry, crowded by the hoofs of splendid 
steeds which drag the carriages of more fortu- 
nate women, they repeat, lest their hearts grow 
sick by the invidious comparison, " Nevertheless 
God careth for us." And He does. If it w^ere 
in my heart to injure any human being for self- 
ish gain, the last I would dare to lift hand 
against would be one of these little ones who 
believe in God. Thus strong and weak unite in 
clinging to this promise, " Cast all your care on 
Him, for He careth for you." 

There are within this great city upper cham- 
bers by the score, which hide the ill-starred vie- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 51 

tims from whose skin and bones hideous dis- 
ease has crushed out every trace of the lovable. 
There is nothing, nothing left to love. It sits a 
staring wreck, speaking gibberish, to watch 
and tend whom is to feel the contagion of a 
madness, like. The room smells of old fevers. 
It is year after year of agony to all. A son 
might say, "It is not my father. He knows me 
not, nor thanks, nor utters rational complaint." 
The proudest Eoman of the Palatine would have 
abandoned such a one to death. Yet they 
who serve, serve gladly, having heard a voice 
that kindles deeper fires than natural affection. 
" I was sick and in prison and ye visited me, 
naked and ye clothed me." 

There is many a child, born to no sweet wel- 
come ; born the token of sin ; born to the lowest 
poor, to whom an added mouth means added 
peril of scant bread; born may be with idiocy 
or pitiable deformity written on its tiny face. 
The boasted classic age would have cast it forth 
to perish, but for the most part now they dare 
not; they would not, dare they; for the hu- 
man heart has ripened under Gospel day. Over 
every little form there seems to stand Another, 



52 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



keeping guard and saying, " I was a stranger — 
most strange ! — and ye took me in." A Gospel 
of goodness. It would make men kinder than 
the kindred tie, and love as Christ loved us. 

Some men laboriously perfect plans and speci- 
fications of the spiritual building, the type of 
piety they intend to construct — when they get 
ready. Years pass, and these builders' plans lie 
yellow aging and dust-covered upon the upper 
shelves of the mind — to be found there as aw- 
ful witnesses against them at the Judgment. 
Amid the northern hills I have seen the farmer 
erect most noble barns, expensively housing 
sheep and oxen, the animal part of his posses- 
sions, but himself dwelling with his family in 
the same miserable old rookery where he was 
born. He gets in debt so deeply over the out- 
buildings that the plans for his own abode lie 
disused in the old brick oven where he keeps 
his papers. 

How many grand ideals are sketched by 
youth, in Sunday-school days. Air-built tem- 
ples for the Christ of the future, they are never 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



53 



reduced to substantial reality; for life is soon so 
deeply in debt for the shelter of appetites, vani- 
ties, and pleasures that men freely confess they 
"can not afford to attempt the Christian life." 

Alone in the broad open fields, how every 
thing preaches to a sensitive mind the folly of 
deceit ! The fields, from whence you root up a 
tuft of grass, smelling the earth smell, which 
seems to say, " I am the same brown earth of a 
thousand years ago " ; the horizon full of light ! 
light! everywhere revelation and no conceal- 
ment; plucked wheat-heads identical in shape 
and function since the Pyramids; the fidelity 
of spring verdure and autumn russet, from age 
to age ; walking amid old trees whose imposing 
aisles, yesterday clouded may be, when a swift 
storm bent things from uprightness, but now, 
as if each stalk had a conscience, lifted up, or 
lifting, to their eternal rectitude once more. 
Of these trees you observe, as you pass, that 
branches befouled in the momentary gale are 
repentant, instantly untwining with many a 
shower of crystal tears, standing so calm, in 



54 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



the warm flood of sunshine, that they remind 
you of the collective conscience of an epoch of 
mankind, which always tends to integrity and 
justice, after passion and prejudice. 

You cast yourself down, embracing the dear 
old mother sod. It is the other incarnation ! 
You turn to look upward through wood, cloud 
and light, wondering how you could ever have 
been tempted to make cloud, wood, light, or 
nature in any form to express a falsehood on 
your titles, markets, looms, or anvils. As well 
attempt to make the Maker falsify. 

" Can not you believe me, my son ? 1 have 
seen the world, and prophesy as true as heaven 
you are on the road to ruin." 

"No. I will prove it for myself then." 

The old father rushes from the interview of 
two good hours. It is the last effort of years of 
expostulation. Tears of vexation mingle with 
the tears of love upon his furrowed cheeks. 

"As well argue with the winds, Mary. Let 
him go and find it out for himself. I would 
have saved him, my child. But now, there is 



ARE THESE THINGS' SO? 55 



this much of satisfaction, I shall have my — 
my-" 

"Your revenge, father?" exclaims the weep- 
ing mother. 

"I did not use the word. Still I shall see 
what I shall see." 

Ah ! when the catastrophe comes, neither 
party feels as he thought he would. There is 
a letter from afar. 

" Sick and ready to die in a prison hospital," 
so the chaplain writes from over seas away. 

"Now, John, your revenge." 

But he puts his arms about the old mate, and 
is gone the next instant, over seas away. 

From the hospital cot the boy moans out, 

"Why don't you say it, father?" 

"Say what, my son?" 

" Say ' I told you it would turn out thus.' 
For you were right, and I was wrong." 

" Hush ! hush ! It is an empty nest at home, 
and a wandering bird here, as said Isaiah. 
Pray God He forgive us all. Thank heaven! 
we may, not must, repent." 



56 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



Some thirty odd years ago a young man stood 
on the banks of the Connecticut Kiver, where it 
bursts through the green gateways of Southern 
Vermont, prospecting for his settlement and 
life-work. As he paused along the beautiful 
narrow valley, there rumbled and jolted, with 
many a cloud of dust, with crack of whip and 
scramble of hoofs the lumbering stage-coach, 
northward bound. He counted the passengers ; 
for he had been solicited to invest his earnings 
in this "old, established, thorough-braced line." 
But the youth had heard the scream of the 
steam whistle across Boston flats, and decided 
that long before he put on the spectacles of age 
the railway would be girdling these mountains. 
The conclusion made him a rich man. 

Now the political machinery of our times for 
instance — do you expect, young men, that the 
bad, the dubious element in society will con- 
tinue during your working years to control 
municipal affairs, legislatures and congresses, 
with briberies and conspiracies of idlers who 
have failed in every business of their own? 
Or do you believe that there shall be soon a 
revival of Christianity? Thousands of young 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



57 



men are in training for public life upon the 
supposition that sharpness and intrigue are to 
win in the next fifty years as in the past. If 
Christianity revives, such lives will be failures. 
Thousands more, upon the same hypothesis, are 
resolving to let society severely alone, leading 
lives of respectable selfishness. What care they 
for public schools, for organized benevolences, 
for the formation of public opinion or correc- 
tion of public morals? They mean to make 
money, abandoning the w^hole hopeless struggle 
to elevate humanity. If Christianity revives, 
these lives are worse than failures; they are 
dead weights, to be shaken off long before the 
day of triumph: for triumph Christ will. 

What would you say of the employee whom, 
after years of failures on his own hook, you 
have taken up, if he now divests himself of all 
interest in the careful use of utensils, raw mate- 
rial, or the perpetuity of the business; whose 
only concern is for his weekly wage ? When a 
man becomes a servant of Christ, all his former 
natural instinct to accumulate and to preserve 



58 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



his accumulations against the tooth of time, 
now should become sanctified to the new Mas- 
ter. A good man's first desire is to save his 
own soul. His next, to save his own life-work ; 
to do that which will endure. The mendicant 
friar is not the type for our times. 

I can understand how a good man should 
desire to draw his life out of the furnace of 
business before he dies, and cast some portion 
of it into enduring bronze ; which shall stand in 
public places with a torch in its hand to light 
the feet of the young. If he builds an asylum 
bearing his name, only the impure will attribute 
a mean motive of ostentation. He thus pre- 
serves his personality. A life is more potent as a 
preacher than multitudes of impersonal theories. 

If the vine, torn down by this week's storm, 
could speak as it lies mud-trampled and entan- 
gled, it would say to the strong-handed gar- 
dener as he lifts it, 

"I am so glad you are come! Yes, straighten 
me by force ; break off my useless members that 
knot me down ! Hasten, for I thought, as I lay 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 59 



here, of the June so near, and other vines ready- 
while I was not." 

There is a joy in correction to the sonl which 
realizes its fallen condition, a delight in being 
stoutly handled by the resistless Spirit working 
its restoration. All winter long, while watch- 
ing this insecure and swaying vine through 
my window, it has seemed to say, 

" Oh ! for strength to keep in place ! Why 
do they not fasten me with hooks and cords and 
sturdy new trellis bars ? " 

There is a longing in many a young passion- 
stormed life for some strong arm to keep, to 
restrain. A priceless assurance comes with con- 
version. " Thou shalt be held. I will keep 
thee, steadfast and immovable, in the calm of 
my peace." 

The bank president says, 

"You confess voluntarily that you defrauded 
us, five years ago?" 

u Yes," responds the trembling youth. 

"And that you have made restoration with 
interest in full?" 



60 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



"Yes." 

"Boy, you should not have told me then. 
Get out of this bank. We can not employ a 
known thief." 

Nay, the young man was right. It is always 
duty to confess as well as to make restitution, 
and take the consequences. But alas ! for him 
who has sinned against a mean man. It re- 
quires great nobility of contrition to confess, 
but equal nobility of wisdom and charity to be 
confessed to. Thousands are ruined just here. 
The majority of men are not large or pure 
enough to receive heart-burdens of guilt. They 
suspect that if we spoke so much, we left more 
unspoken : or that we want to knit up the rav- 
elled sleeve of our fortunes. We know not how 
to convince them of genuine desires to be bet- 
ter, and dread the long probation before they 
shall see that we are not thoroughly bad. 
Hence we too often turn away, silent, feeling 
that to speak would be only to ruin ourselves 
in their good opinion ; and our load is still 
on us. 

Happy the father who is so pure and loving, 
pure and wise to discern betwixt the evil and 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



61 



the good, that a child feels he can tell any- 
thing to father, for he will understand and not 
utterly cast off. Happy the head of a great 
business house, so noble that the humblest clerk 
astray is drawn to him in confession, — as the 
sun draws damps out of noisome ravines by 
warmth and exaltation. 

There is this peculiarity about confession to 
God, that instantly the soul is made sure He 
knows, not only the guilt, but all the long- 
ings of the soul to be better. It is not only 
an exposure of sin, but a] so of our little vir- 
tue, the virtue of struggle before we fell as 
well as holier present desires. We hold dia- 
logue with One who can appreciate all, and 
needs no labored explanations. The world too 
often misses this sweetest ray of light that 
shines upon confession. 

, Daybreak is usually a moment of silence and 
motionless surprise to inanimate nature. The 
leaves scarce tremble on the bough; the great 
winds have not yet begun to rise; the bars 
of massy color lie in cloudland, with no stir, 



62 



ARE THESE THINGS SOP 



across the gates of the east. Every thing seems 
to stand with uplifted hands of wonder at the 
coming of the light. It is not till quite an in- 
terval has elapsed that movement begins over 
wood and field. 

With the human soul the first moments 
of absolute detection in fault before God are 
speechless. The thought that He knows all 
paralyzes us. Light floods the whole being. 
Evasion is impossible; so also for the time 
seems prayer. It is not strange that our friend, 
in the early conviction of revival season, is reti- 
cent, and seeks solitude ; that he does not as yet 
begin to act. The soul will recover from its 
astonishment at itself, its wonder at the divine 
uncoverings. The winds will soon rise and the 
sweet rain of tears follow, all in good time. 

i 

The jury-room is too often a place of mere 
animalism. He is a Christian but hungry, or 
sleepy, or both; it is time to go home. The 
first impulse that asserts itself from within or 
without carries the day. There is no con- 
science in it, not to speak of exercise of reason. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



63 



But the day of revelations will come. The 
night's work shall be tried so as by fire; and 
one will some time know in the clear light of 
eternity, whether Almighty God accepts the 
hour's work, or casts it away, righting the poor 
victim. The burning of hay, wood, and stub- 
ble must cover us with conscious sense of loss. 
The endurance of gold, silver, precious stones 
must afford us self-gratulation or " reward." 

Every time I cast my vote, or adjudicate upon 
a neighbors character, or write a critique on 
his book, or range myself upon questions of 
public reform, let me remember that I am doing 
work of which I shall know, some time, some- 
where, whether God accepts it in the great edi- 
fice of human society. Good men honestly op- 
posed the American Eevolution, and prayed for 
its overthrow. They have long since, in the 
eternal world, unsaid with regret, the sayings 
of earth. The saddest obstacles in the way of 
human progress have not been the wickedness 
of the wicked; but the blind prejudices of good 
men. A boy with hesitation lifts his hand 
against even the error of his father. Let me 
bind no fetters upon the young and shining 



64 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



limbs of the coming Generation ; but rather put 
such stepping stones beneath its feet as shall 
remain when I am long gone. 

It is one thing to start into a country road 
with which you are so familiar that you instant- 
ly recognize, nay, foresee every acclivity and de- 
scent, every water-bar, just where the brook will 
appear dashing along-side, the bridge beyond, 
the bend to the south, the farmhouse with the 
red gable and the next with the white, and the 
winding home lane at the end. It is quite an- 
other thing to say, as you pass into the wood, 
" I never went this way before. Yet, because 
the guide-post reads this is the way, walk I in 
it. Come hill where I supposed there would be 
valley; trend southward where I think the gen- 
eral direction should have been to the east; 
come unfamiliar dwellings with strange faces at 
the windows ; yet I'll on, to prove that it leads 
to fireside welcome and repose." 

A great fundamental tenet of the creed like 
the eternal punishment of the wicked is to you 
the familiar road. Your faith sees the whole 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



65 



length, so far at least that you are never trou- 
bled over it. Your friend, looking upon his 
dead father s picture, remembering the sinners 
death he died, yet poor father ! is perplexed and 
heart-sore. Still it is written, flee the wrath to 
come. Those awful delineations of Christ are 
really there, upon the page of Scripture. He 
says, " I'll do it, do it ! by force of faith I'll walk 
the road. It is not for me to know more than 
that my soul is saved through the blood of the 
Lamb." 

Emerging at last into the full light of eter- 
nity you two men stand side by side. Happy 
you who never had a doubt. But happy also 
he who obeying, treading down doubt, has per- 
fected faith by works, and wrought his way 
painfully to clearness of vision. 

There is a process in chemistry by which thin 

invisible vapors are poured past a cold standard 

of metal; at first much vapor mingling with 

the air, not touching the standard, yet some is 

chilled, precipitated, frozen. Pour on more and 

more. Soon you have a monolith of shining 
5 



66 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



crystal and increasing every hour. There is a 
strange crystallization of works into faith. That 
which a man does often is transmitted into be- 
lief. The young convert, at first hardly knows 
why he goes to the Lord's Supper. After years 
of repetitious observance the ordinance is a be- 
lief, a cluster of realities too vast for description. 
Do you desire undaunted faith in prayer? Pray 
often. Do you wish full confidence in the ordi- 
nances of God's house? Observe them faith- 
fully. Would you believe, as your friend does, 
with no slightest shade of doubt, in the Script- 
ures as inspired? Treat them as such. 

That piteous cry, "I wish I could believe! I 
want to believe." What is it but the assent of 
the spirit, the grosser intellect the while not 
yet yielding ? I have stood in drought-smitten 
fields praying, " Oh, west winds, will ye ever 
come, bringing rain ? " My dull flesh, the hand 
uplifted, replied, "There is no air-current to 
be felt." The crisp wheat-stalks moveless, "We 
feel no wind." The stiff" twigs upon gnarled old 
tree-top, bearing glossy leafage motionless in the 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



67 



deathly heat, " Not a breath stirs us." Almost 
ready to despair I look high up, where, over the 
tree-tops, the white-winged seed of a thistle, 
journeying unmistakably eastward ! Yes, and 
now from knolls along the tillage here and 
there, on every hand the sensitive down is feel- 
ing the breath too spiritual for coarse-fibred 
rock maples, telling that the winds are on the 
way. In eight and forty hours the showers will 
be here, and then a gale to shake even these 
forest giants. The tearful moan, " I wish I 
could believe," is the response of the higher, 
more sensitive affections of the heart. The 
head will feel the impulse by and by. With 
the heart man believeth unto righteousness. 
There are altitudes of our soul-life which are 
amenable to influences and aspirations, not con- 
trary to, but above, reason. 

In the initial stages of conversion the soul 
seems to itself self-moved; as if its own free 
power of choice was alone involved. It wills 
to cease a life of sin and set out upon a pilgrim- 
age of righteousness, as one might resolve to 



68 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



arise from one of these pews, resolved to go 
home. But soon, and especially as time ad- 
vances, a soul seems to itself to have been like 
a leaf fallen by the roadside in autumn ; power- 
less to move till great winds come catching it 
up with resistless power of motion, bearing it 
on, high up over the dead, level earth, and into 
exalted realms of the upper air. The soul rests 
upon the Holy Spirit, which like a Sacred 
Breath, or Wind, as Christ said, transports it 
into virtues all His own. So is every one that 
is born of the Spirit. 

A tiny rivulet upon the sides of the mountain 
was born of last night's May shower. Trickling 
down the slopes of a ravine, it is caught and 
dammed up with twigs and dead leaves, foam- 
ing and mud-tinged. It would run clear, if it 
could pursue its destiny to the sea. It is like 
the human heart, obstructed in its motion tow- 
ards God, the end of its being. This enchained 
streamlet has a strange inward propulsion, as if 
it knew it belonged to the distant deep; but 
how shall it find the way through the wide, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



69 



blue landscape of dusty absorption? It wants 
a larger body, like, yet unlike itself, belonging 
both to the mountains and to the ocean ; as J e- 
sus Christ belonged both to humanity and to 
Deity, partaking of both natures and connect- 
ing them. If now these fettered waters could 
burst into the mighty river flowing near, it 
should have access through the son to the fa- 
ther of waters, the wide, far-away sea. The 
river seems to invite, saying, " I am the way " : 
as Jesus Christ said unto human souls, " I am 
the way, the truth, and the life ; no man cometh 
unto the Father, but by me." 

I am the youngest son, if you please; and in 
a mad rage of disobedience have played the 
prodigal. Time passes and my hut upon the 
southern pampas has become dear to me, with 
all its rude discomforts. I have almost forgot- 
ten my mother-tongue, in these thirty years. I 
am not poor ; but such barbaric wealth ! I love 
goats; have nuggets of gold strung like beads 
under my thatch; and companions of dusky 
skins. Memory has a little place; there is the 



70 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



sleeve ot a garment patched by a mother's fin- 
gers the last time the sailor boy was in port, 
which is treasured. Yet how feeble is the im- 
pulse to return. It is never strong enough to 
take me out of the wilderness. Think now of 
my elder brother who finding me, stands in 
my hovel door with the invitation, "You are 
wanted at home." I do not say any illustration 
can accurately parallel Christ's coming. But I 
ask you; does there not come to me from out- 
side of me something else beside the invitation ? 
namely, a great desire to go, and a resolution 
that I will ! It is borne in upon me from with- 
out. It is the me, my memory, my will, my 
love, my feet that walk to the coast, yet the 
not me. I am set on fire. 

Arriving at the fireside, over the thousands 
of miles, I say, 

" My father, you have brought me back 
again ! " 

"I?" the old man blessed asks. "Did not 
you use your own feet, and come of yourself?'' 

" Yes; but I should have never come, had you 
not drawn me. All the thanks belong to you. 
I should have stopped, discouraged, a score of 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



71 



times, but that ten thousand invisible cords 
seemed tugging me on, — to you and peace." 

One may hardly hope any illustration will 
fully mirror the work of the Holy Spirit; but 
there surely is an influence from without us, 
which enables the rebel heart to do, what he 
before feebly desired to do, but lacked the 
power to do — accept the invitation of the elder 
brother whom the father sent. And strangely 
one, as in a trinity, seem these three. The End, 
the Means, the Power. 

At the foot of the garden, just under the mag- 
nolia whose branches in full flower overshoot 
the street, you saw the pile of rags — a drunk- 
ard. The petals of the magnolia fall on him; 
on his coarse muddy feet, on his hatless head. 
Three pure leaves of this munificent flower had 
fluttered down upon his swart, bare breast, 
which hardly heaved in this sleep worse than 
death. And one lay in the outstretched, nerve- 
less palm, beyond the arm that formed a pillow. 
God made them both, tree and man. One has 
kept its first estate, one has been dishonored. 



72 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



Christ came to reconcile the two : — in a beauti- 
ful world man made again beautiful. Consider 
the lilies of the field. How much more would 
he clothe you, oh! ye of little faith! 

As I stand in the glory of a May morning, — 
this florescence, this leafage, this verdure — I. am 
sure nothing here was copied. The Creator had 
never seen a Daffodil before He made the far- 
away ancestor of all these. He first thought 
out these shapes, from the riches of His own 
mind: then clothed them in majestic incarna- 
tion. How grave and exalted, how" beautiful 
are thy thoughts, God ! It is in looking 
abroad that I worship thee. 

If I paint cattle, I put in mountains, hills, 
valleys, trees, farmhouse and water — the mod- 
ern painter's cattle must always be standing 
knee-deep in a placid stream, lazily swinging in 
token of content, whether in fact one sees them 
thus employed once in a hundred real land- 
scapes. But whatever I have is grouped around 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 73 



the cattle as the centre. Suppose I change my 
painting to a mountain scene. I still have hills, 
valleys, trees, and human dwellings. Again I 
put in living forms. But cattle, men, and every 
feature now are grouped around the mountain 
as the centre. If I sketch the farmhouse in its 
turn, all elements do obeisance to the dwelling. 
When the Holy Spirit of God changes man s 
" disposition,'' soul, by converting grace, the an- 
imal nature is still there; the intellect, affec- 
tions, volitions, appetites are still there. The 
love of life, the ambition, the thrift of business 
are still there. But all are regrouped and har- 
monized around the mountain's base of Divine 
Love. Love of Christ is the centre and focus of 
the new life. Eternal life becomes the outlook 
of the whole soul. Before, the intellect, or af- 
fections, or any one of the natural elements of 
disposition, occupied the chief place, in a dis- 
turbing malformation. 

A geranium was wheeled out by the gardener 
and dumped down by the farm-road, as useless, 
last April. It turned over on its side in the 



74 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



first rain-storm and began to grow, neglected 
and alone. The hay-cart bent it nearly double 
in June, but it saved a third of its stalk and was 
well thriving again by August. An ox, toiling 
with a load of early harvest, grasped at it, tore 
it up by the roots, mistaking it for something 
palatable and whisked it away. Settling into 
an old disused rut, it availed itself of the shower 
that very night ; and grew so beautiful by the 
late September that the gardener was glad to 
take its flowering tribute, flaming among the 
gray stubble of withered grass around, and give 
it place upon his master's table. There are 
some human hearts that possess this marvel- 
lous vitality of hope, and high resolve to thrive, 
wherever their hard lot. They shall be before 
the throne, when the great Master cometh to 
make up his jewels. 

A man may hold sound doctrine in an un- 
sound way. Salvation is " all of grace and not 
of ourselves. It is the gift of God." That is 
true. But suppose he magnifies one side of this, 
till he conceives of himself — " a poor sinner, and 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



75 



God knows it, but Christ is my merit " — as in a 
boat, lying prone, inactive, lulled to sleep, with 
nothing to do. He will be careless of business 
probity over in the store, so long as he misses 
no prayer-meeting ; he will be harsh in the fam- 
ily, so he marshals the boys to morning prayers ; 
he will exculpate himself though he shows to dis- 
advantage beside some unconverted man of fair- 
er life. " Oh yes, but for all he's more upright 
than I, he is not a Christian. He is self-right- 
eous. I have no righteousness." No. That's all 
too evident. "But he trusts in self. I do not 
trust in myself." Evidently. Oh, my brother, 
will you seethe the kid in its mother's milk? 
Shall the very cross, erected to save from sin, 
tempt to sin? One may kill himself with water, 
sweet water, with which he doth burst himself. 
Can you not see that you hold sound doctrine in 
an unsound way, since it produces such fruits ? 
Christ neither teaches, nor suffers any soul to 
be, an idle incumbent upon the Divine Pas- 
sion. Correct yourself. "Faith without works 
is dead." 



76 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



You who are feeble from birth, disadvantaged 
in the race of life because you have not the en- 
durance, the strength, the eyes, ears, or mental 
gifts of your brother; there are two courses 
open to you. You may trace the line of gene- 
alogy, arraigning sire and grandsire to the 
fourth generation; yes, the whole human race, 
and cry out, "It is an accursed race! Every 
thing about it is wrong. I hate it. Why does 
God make men of such stock ! " And thus crawl 
along this human highway, ascerbed and mis- 
anthropic. Thousands keep you company on 
those dark paths. Or you may straighten your 
bent body, looking upward with the assurance 
that, while sin is the origin of all our woes, 
since it is not your sin that fastened these bands 
of birthright imbecility, you need not ask who ? 
where ? or when ? It is that the works of God 
might be manifest in you. Christ, I yield my 
sick self into thine hands, that, in restoring me, 
thou mayest show forth thy glory. 

How? Will He heal the bliiTdness, as of 
old? Perhaps not. But we are to take that 
w T ider view that contemplates the lasting wel- 
fare of the soul. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



77 



Three lads are born upon a New Hampshire 
farm. Two have the heart -beats of young 
steers, and develop the brawn of bronze. One 
is pale, of languid pulse, whose muscles are as 
soft as infants' flesh. The two stalwarts go to 
the field, go to roistering hustings, go to barn- 
raisings and hard cider, go to rude bucolic call- 
ings, but seem never likely to go to their knees. 
Whiteface sits at home, drumming the window- 
pane far into the night, watching the astral 
heavens as he awaits his late-returning broth- 
ers. He reclines upon the sunny bench at the 
south of the house, under the falling leaves, 
while the strong ones bend with the October 
harvesters, and thinks and dreams. He is much 
at his mother's knee. He is her own boy, in 
cast and growth of character. She speaks to 
him of spiritual things, while the really fine 
mind opens as she disseminates truth from a 
woman's intuitions. He is to be a thinker. He 
learns to commune with her Christ, familiarly. 
Countless temptations of appetite and mad am- 
bition pass him by unsolicited. To be impris- 
oned is to mark the sunset, to think on God at 
His work. To be tied to a chair is to train ivy 



78 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



and domestic flowers above the warm hearth of 
winter. To be a sufferer is to feel for the suffer- 
ing till, from noisings abroad, one's room is a 
neighborhood asylum for weary hearts. Yfho 
so familiar with the sacred page ? So that 
Whiteface becomes the sweetest spirit in the 
home, leading lion and tiger by the turn of a 
thin forefinger, marshalling the stocking-footed 
hill-men, father, sons and hired helpers, each 
night w T ithin his chamber for his good night sal- 
utations before they climb up under the rafters. 
While on Thanksgiving Day the sick one's sun- 
lit corner is a very heaven. Who shall deny 
that his misfortunes were that the works of God 
might be manifest in him ! As for those robust 
ones — God has his own way of dealing with 
them; Ave are studying now the invalid. 

We admit, nay, assert, that true and defensi- 
ble contentment can have no rational basis but 
the faith of the cross. If this week Thursday, 
w^hich ends the month, there shall cross the 
ferry a weary man and unemployed: standing 
in the crowd with Dives' horses just behind him 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 79 



champing their bits and spattering him with 
foam ; he bethinking him that another rent-day 
is at hand and his hand empty; oh! if he had 
what these chains cost — grasping them lest the 
proud hoofs tread upon him — aye, what the 
varnish on these glittering wheels cost; if, de- 
jected, at length he bursts into the presence of 
his waiting, praying wife, whose cheery "what's 
the news?" must be answered with " don't ask 
me ! " — then and there shall be enacted such 
scenes of Christian triumph as have become 
familiar household tales of late in this suffering 
land. Far into the midnight she argues and he 
moans, the children sweetly sleeping; he prone 
upon the cot, she with the open Testament in 
her lap, sitting at his side. 

" 1 tell you there is nothing but blind Fate." 
This he. 

She — "But, John, if one could believe there 
is a Personal God infinite in power and love." 
"Well, what then?" 

"If a man believes that God to be ordering 
every thing for the best unto all His creatures, 
especially unto such as submit to His will." 

"Mary! But to see you and them sleeping 



80 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



yonder, shelterless to-morrow and without food 
the next day ! and I a strong fellow, the victim 
of no vice, nor cowardice, only bad luck ! " 

" If a man believes in Jesus Christ, and that 
the government is upon His shoulders, that He 
is a Good Shepherd, that He notes the fall of a 
sparrow, that He clothes the lily of the field and 
counts the hairs of our head, that He is wise to 
determine our lot, as goes the hymn you used to 
sing — " 

And now, in very agony the poor fellow digs 
his fingers into the ragged coverlet, writhing to 
hide his face of tears; while she, rising to her 
feet all glowing, pursuing her advantage, fairly 
holding aloft the Book whose fluttering leaves 
have lent her this impassioned ecstasy, — she 
discourses in such power as is sacred to that 
poor home's seclusion. " If we believe in that 
eternal future which He has gone to prepare 
for us, — for you, John, and for me, — then our 
light affliction w^hich is but for a moment we 
can bear. This is the contentment and the 
peace which passeth all understanding." 

Bless God for such ministrants at the incon- 
spicuous altars of lowly homes. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 81 

Eeceive is the one word that describes the 
healthful conduct of human life. We receive 
being at birth, we do nothing but receive for 
the months that follow; receive mother-milk, 
clothing, warmth, care. The lad receives pro- 
tection, advice, and wisdom, if indeed he does re- 
ceive; for, rejecting these, he rejects his destiny, 
to find out his own way which is death. We 
receive pickaxe and pen, and our place in the 
world. Old men smile, as they hear proud youth 
talk of " hewing a way," or " winning a way" 
through life, to fortune, as if there could be any 
path discovered or cut out, that was not hard- 
beaten like a Broadway by the thousands who 
have trodden it before us. In all honorable vo- 
cations the road is Patience, Industry, Frugality, 
Knowledge. And, if one go higher, Eepentance, 
the New Heart through Christ, and the common 
gate to Heaven. The youth makes his experi- 
ment. At times he seems to be hewing, win- 
ning, and inventing ; but afterwards reviewing, 
he perceives he was but lifting up a hewing 
hand to cut away the obstacles to his receiving. 
As when one bursts a prison wall, or emerges 

toilfully from a wood, he has but to receive 
6 



82 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



the down-pouring sun. Old age testifies, "All 
my battles have in fact been against Self, that 
I might not reject, against Others that I might 
not be defrauded of, the good which God meant 
me to receive'' 1 

You have lost a friend by death ; and for a time 
in the freshness of your grief it has seemed that 
possibly that disembodied spirit might be near 
you, might be guarding you. Might? Must is 
the word. But in time the consciousness suffers 
abatement. You are not quite so sure of unseen 
companionships. After years this spiritual sen- 
sitiveness has faded thinly, and "Where are the 
dead"? You confess you can not locate them. 

The consciousness of Christ, however, to the 
true Christian, is abiding ; it increases with the 
years. He uses the words "see," "hear," and 
"feel." Moreover, to attempt to realize the 
spirits of departed just men made perfect is 
disturbing, and, if carried too far, unhealthy. 
The sane mind pauses early on that giddy 
tracking, lest it lose its balance. 

The realization of the ascended Christ on the 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 83 



contrary is soothing, hallowing, and most health- 
ful. It is but to live up to one's privilege. Let 
us conclude then that spiritual sensibility is per- 
mitted to apprehend the Saviour ; but forbidden 
as yet the loved and lost. The one is natural, 
the other unnatural, for we are attuned to na- 
ture, but the unnatural destroys. What may we 
know of Heaven ? Very little beyond the fact 
that it is where Christ is. In all the confusion 
of the mind's pictures of that land, this alone is 
distinct, clear, and in accordance with fact — 
Christ is there. 

There are souls which are like dwellings shut 
up. A little loop-hole is left behind lambre- 
quins, thick laces, and shutters of dull oak, 
barely sufficient to save gas. The poor sun- 
beams steal and stream instantly in, laughing 
and seeming to say, as they creep, flicker, fight 
backward and forward in varying battle with 
deep shadows, " Let us in, admit all our troop. 
How dusty you are here, and loaded with the 
breath of mould." With long tapering fingers 
they point bravely out the stains of ancient pict- 



84 ARE THESE THINGS SOP 

Tire cords along the walls, and noisome thumb- 
marks by the doors. They smite with their 
golden rod the puffy wounds that moths have 
made, till they smoke like small volcanoes. They 
linger with an argent halo around the pictured 
face of friend departed, lending it a beauty to 
rebuke and stir forgetfulness to tears. They 
spy out piles of tattered music, chained in un- 
used racks, and read the titles of noble volumes 
standing like dead monks in crypts; while slip- 
ping away one sunbeam struggles vainly at 
the rusty key. " Oh let us in ! Our name is 
legion, rapping, pouring, flooding this grim 
house without, and we will draw the colors of 
pride from your carpets, making them home 
rugs of comfort, so that children shall frolic 
here, the cricket sing at the hearth, with health 
married to happiness. ,, 

Yet it is pitiful, how people strive to shut out 
the light. It is the Saviour s own figure. He 
is the true light that lighteneth every man that 
cometh into the world, if we prefer not dark- 
ness rather. A Christian should be the wisest 
of men in casuistry, in all knowledge of what is 
right between man and man. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



85 



We sometimes think a man will serve self 
better than any one else. Not so. The most 
faithful work we ever do is service of another 
in the performance of a commission, when love 
moves the heart. We each offer to self every 
day a fidelity, a measure of honor, and veracity, 
with which self is quite satisfied, but which we 
would consider too poor an article to present to 
others. A man breaks a secret good resolution 
with less hesitation than his spoken word given 
to another. The noblest self-respect is enno- 
bled by the consciousness of a heavenly Master. 
Considering heart secrets, the best of men will 
bear watching, and improve under the con- 
sciousness of an All-seeing Eye. 

The ascended Christ offers for us a contin- 
uous atonement. A certain youth who is twen- 
ty years old to-day was not in existence when 
you, brother of the gray beard, sought pardon 
through Christ. When Christ died on Calvary, 
in the Great Yesterday, were none of us. Yet 
when you of mellow years, or when this youth 
of to-day would seek salvation, each must look 



86 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



up to the Christ who in heaven pleads for each 
in turn His death once suffered. 

That youth forgiven will still have need of 
Christ. Forgiven in this moment number one, 
living on to moment number two, he has not 
lived guiltless. Between moment number two 
and year number forty, he will have had con- 
stant need of an atonement, to propitiate for the 
imperfections of a sinful, though a " converted," 
human life. 

Moreover, the sins of that prenatal period — 
I speak of the neiv birth — are still his. As a 
matter of fact he committed them. Christ's 
pardon does not falsify history. What has 
been, has been, whatever may be afterward. 
Sin deserves penalty. Why does it not fall 
even yet? Because of the continuous mercy 
of the sacrificial Lord. 

If to-day I wrong you by defalcation and, 
summoned into your presence, you point to the 
secretary drawer where you declare is the evi- 
dence to ruin me, I may plead my remorse. I 
trust in your mercy, though acknowledging that 
by every law human and divine I ought to suffer. 
You assure me that, not alone because I repent, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



87 



but because you love me and I have sued your 
love you will forgive ; you will assume all the suf- 
fering resultant from my wrong to your affairs — 
saving you remind me that the suffering I have 
myself already experienced, and must always in 
a measure experience so often as I recall my 
sin, no one can take. Whatever is, is. Now I 
walk forth, with head erect, happy in the ascer- 
tainment that for your love's sake you will nev- 
er, never proceed against me. To remember the 
crime is yet to regret, but also to be warmed into 
a glow of gratitude towards you which whelms 
my pangs. Turn over ten years of my future. 
As a matter of fact am I not yet a defaulter, 
though since living in probity ? And does not 
default merit the prison in the next decade as 
truly as now ? "Why does not the penalty fall ? 
Because you are yet holding it back, as in all 
these years — to think of which, moment by mo- 
ment, is to love, trust, and thank you. 

Man may aver that he has burned the drawer- 
ful of records. But can Jehovah destroy the 
records of a life? They are His memory. To 
forget is to cease to be. Forever and forever, 
youth of twenty, just forgiven by the eter- 



88 



ARE THESE THINGS SO ? 



nal Saviour, it -would be possible to proceed 
against you, so far as proof and desert are con- 
cerned. Yet forever and forever, now that you 
cry in faith, has He put your sins behind His 
back. Age on age thou art a creature of His 
loving mercy. The past at least is secure. Yet 
you need Him every hour of the sumless ages. 

That delicate civility to women which we call 
gallantry, what is it but the fringe and tassel 
of mercy? 

I was pacing to and fro, awaiting a train 
within a railway station. There were others in 
the great room, and it was singular none of 
them had observed it before — a sparrow impris- 
oned within the sliding window sashes. He 
had thought he saw a way, but it was a glass 
wall. He had beaten his wings to tatters, and 
his fair plumage into rags. The glass was 
opaque with the stains of his denuded cuticle, 
and streaked with blood. He may have been 
in this crystal dungeon for hours, and fighting 
till he sank into quiet from exhaustion; from 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



89 



which reviving again to fight as when I first 
heard him. Could I be denied it, as I sprang 
to that heavy frame and sent it with a bang 
to the ceiling, letting the oppressed go free? 
Does not Christ, the Sent to open prison doors, 
feel a grander propulsion to liberate unhappy 
men, who thought they saw a way, but found 
themselves in dreadful bonds of poverty, or 
pain, or dishonor, or conscious sin? Suppose 
the sparrow had piped out to me, in shrill 
treble, that he wanted no mercy, but justice; 
that he could conduct his own life; that he 
scorned to be beholden unto any one. It is an 
analogue of many human souls, who are whip- 
ping their wings to shreds against the impossi- 
ble, while to God all things are possible, even 
their setting free. 

Christ said, " Before Abraham was, I am." 
In any other lips that is a solecism. Men say 
"was," "is," "shall be." But to a Being unto 
whom all Eternity is as one vast Present, the 
use of verbal tenses is an accommodation only, 
for the human ears that are to hear. 



90 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



Abraham is not so very far away, if the in- 
terval be measured by proper chronometers. 
Yonder sandbar, shifting and transient as com- 
pared with the coast line, bridled the sea as it 
does in our sight, the morning Abraham lay 
upon the breast of his unknown mother. Eun 
your forefinger along these moss-grown groves 
of Catskill rocks, in which the sunbeams blush 
to day. The same sun-tints and shadows played 
across the same w r rinkles in this old face of the 
mountain, upon the morning they first reddened 
on the new-born face of Abraham. 

The days of our years are three-score years 
and ten. Place fifty-seven men of such age in 
line, as one dies at seventy clasping his aged 
hand in the soft palm of the babe just born 
his successor. The procession would not reach 
from the pulpit to the door. Yet the furthest 
man, in his strength of youth, might bend over 
the cradle of the infant Abraham. Against this 
fragment of time place that great Life, which 
had "a glory with the Father before the world 
was." 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 91 



This boastful independence which we men 
take on, aged thirty — forty ! This that is the 
one obstacle to our reception of the Gospel 
mercy in Christ! Great God, thou knowest 
there is not an Hercules among us but can 
recall some shuddering moment of the past 
when nothing but mercy saved him — God's 
mercy; man's mercy; the sea's mercy, aye, for 
the very elements grew kind just then and let 
him escape. Moments were when we were like 
butterflies that, swimming through the win- 
dows of the village forge, light down upon 
the shining anvil, pluming themselves in com- 
plaisant security, lifting gossamer wing and 
seemingly rubbing palms of content: while 
above is the sledge-hammer, and the argent 
iron ready to be withdrawn, spattering fire. 
With a pause and a puff of his breath the 
forgeman said, " Go, sir ! Do not die a fool ! " 
So mercy blew us out of danger, more than 
once; we fluttering off but half appreciating 
our peril. Surely goodness and mercy have 
followed us from Heaven all the days of our 
lives. Why then not add, " I will dwell in the 
house of the Lord forever ? " 



92 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



It is a severe comment on the condition of 
the "natural heart" of man, as the Scriptures 
phrase it, that he should be commanded to re- 
ceive mercy from God. I suppose if we could 
assure our dull hearts that the mercies were 
always physical and material immunities, we 
should scarce wait to be commanded; if the 
sin against nerve and stomach might not bring 
sickness, or folly with dynamite and gunpow- 
der might not effect explosion. But when prof- 
fered mercy from Heaven means soul-care, de- 
liverance from present and future condemna- 
tion, we beggars become choosers and dare 
decline ! 

We prate a,bout justice. Who ever saw the 
article on this earth? There is none perfect 
and full, this side the Judgment Day. If there 
were, I would not dare invoke it. Mercy how- 
ever is free, is common as the air. I dare in- 
voke that without measure. 

In this struggling world it seems to me the 
wise, in conducting life to successful issue, 
never reject proffered kind words, nor warm 
hands, nor kisses instead of curses. They take 
all favors, which are such in deed and in truth, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 93 % 

and are thankful. Therefore they take Christ, 
God's greatest mercy. 

Is it all of this to be a Christian? Such 
watchings, such care? Aye, it is this, and 
more. It is by watching, by care, by study, 
by prayer, by warfare, by hands of friends and 
arms of angels, by cross-bearing and by being 
born on spirit wings — by these to be as pil- 
grims who have long been walking in the 
night season. Now no one knows the exact 
hour, only it must at length be near the morn- 
ing, so long has been the night. Yes, birds are 
singing, flowers perfuming, mists rising. Soon 
the cry is, " Lo ! He cometh ! " 

"Even so, come, Lord Jesus." 

Not till then ends this strife for eternal life. 

The habitual secularity which comes on many 
Christian believers, so that to meet in the church 
vestibule is only to speak of worldly things and 
never of Jesus; to meet in quiet moments of 
trade is never, like two fellow pilgrims bound 



94 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



for Canaan, to talk over their hopes by the way ; 
to meet in social life is to range the world for 
every topic of conversation but the one thing, 
which, from hearts a-burning with the love of 
Christ, it would seem must some time get voice. 
Think you this reveals great wealth of spiritual 
experiences? 

A good man dies suddenly. The world ex- 
claims, " How unexpected ! We bought and 
sold together Saturday. What did he leave?" 
A brother disciple here appears and narrates, in 
the stricken widow's ears, how he walked up 
from the office with the departed but a week 
ago, when health was tingling in his every 
vein. "We fell to speaking of the coming 
Sabbath, and he opened his heart to me all the 
way along, telling of such strong confidence in 
the God of his salvation." It was the last ex- 
press word of testimony any mortal ever heard 
from him. It w^as better than "dying testimo- 
ny," because undisturbed by the fever of fear, 
and natural. Write it all down, poor woman. 
The words are throbbing yet, as bells do long 
after they be struck. 

Another dies; and — and no one can recall 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



95 



any oral testimony from liim for a year past. 
That last year he was very inactive and luke- 
warm in the church. 

In extremely "high" life, that life the apostle 
deprecated when he warned us to "mind not 
high things, but condescend to men of low es- 
tate," how little do men and women know 
hearts. Courtesy, etiquette, and innumerable 
conventionalities keep each from really knowing 
the other. Two "great men," as the phrase goes, 
know each other as Alpine peaks, each gazing at 
the other in his brilliancy and cold, distant splen- 
dor. Down in the valley the clovers and other 
gentle grasses interlace in sweet embrace, and 
blossom in a confusion of loving kindness that 
leaves each stock in willing doubt which flower 
is his own. It is among the common people 
mostly that one feels heart beat against heart, 
and is in sympathy with human life in its reality. 

Say that no doctrine is true that does not 
tend to "the glory of God," and your test is 



96 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



perfect in theory but fallible in practice. "The 
glory of God " is too often but a glittering gen- 
erality, difficult to ascertain with speculative 
truths. We see truth in half lights. A man 
may reject the doctrine of a Personal Devil be- 
cause he forsooth thinks it dishonoring to the 
Divine Government. If he saw the whole bear- 
ings of the truth he might conclude it was to 
the highest glory of God. Of the practical tend- 
encies of truth in human lives, on the contrary 
there is very little ground for uncertainty. The 
glory of God unmistakably is virtuous and spirit- 
ual human lives. Any doctrine therefore which 
legitimately makes men feel secure in sin, or 
tempts them to laxity of morals is not of God, 
is not true. The sale of indulgences crumbles 
under this test, and likewise the assertion that 
" The end justifies the means." Many of the 
ephemeral isms of our day have been found rot- 
ten under this test. Mormonism will not en- 
dure it, nor "Spiritualism," nor Communism. 
The upright citizen carries this test in his hand. 
He is constantly pronouncing of the "spirits" 
he "tries" — "I do not want such and such stuff 
taught my children or employees. Tt tempts 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 97 

them to immorality, and stupefies their sense of 
moral responsibility." 

We are creatures of times and seasons. We 
have our apt hours. To-day closes the most 
gorgeous month of the year. Two months ago 
many of us came back from vacation wander- 
ings and began the school, the busy round of 
domestic duties, opened office and desk with 
great surplus vigor. Rest cloyed ; it seemed 
we should never want more. We sprang at 
our tasks, and flattered ourselves we were as 
good as new, — as youth once more. To-da} 
not a few begin to realize that old pain again, 
companion of years. Ah, I am not such a giant 
after all ; that old confusion of the head. Hold. 
I was mistaken. I shall never be elastic like 
my youth again. I forswear the dream. 

Well now, stopping a moment this October 
day, breathing heavily, is it not an apt hour in 
which to think on the rest that remaineth to 
the people of God ? To such blissful considera- 
tion I invite you this morning. 



98 



ARE THESE THINGS SO ? 



Envy is covetousness gone to seed. When 
we can not hope to possess ourselves of anoth- 
er's good, yet refuse to correct the longing and 
the vain contemplation, at times a feeling of 
malignity supervenes. We would deprive oth- 
ers of their advantage. The vagabond accosts 
the horseman, 

"Take me up. I'm footsore." 

"But the beast can not carry two." 

" Then I'll drag you down. Misery craves 
company." 

"Nay, but if you do I'll shoot the beast I 
ride." 

"Very well, do so. I'd rather the beast 
were dead than that you should be mounted 
and I on foot." 

In politics it is not the Communist alone, 
but the highly respectable aspirant who dis- 
appointed, exclaims, "Then I'll break — every 
thing ! " On 'Change the man worsted cries, 
"Then I'll scuttle the ship, and sink the cor- 
poration." 

In affairs of the heart the fruit is tragedy, 
and thus another seed, which we call jealousy, 
from the sear pod of covetousness. It is a 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



99 



plant, take it all in all, that is well cut down 
when it first sprouts in the tender soil of a 
young heart 

Who so poor that he has not one best friend 
who prays for him ? That friend, the one boy 
of the juvenile school who, alone of the many 
now scattered world-wide, your heart cherishes ; 
with whom you keep up correspondence; who 
always crosses your threshold when in town, 
and the way to whose gate you always find; 
who has come to your help in more than one 
stress of weather; who is without cant, yet a 
Christ-follower if such there be on the earth. 

Is it nothing to you, that with your picture 
above his office desk, to glance whereat each 
morning is to pray that you may yet be saved ? 
Nothing, that his children kneeling nightly be- 
neath the pictures of your children on his home 
walls are taught to ask for you the mercy of 
Christ? Nothing, his many letters of such burn- 
ing exhortation to embrace a faith which theo- 
retically you accept as heartily as he; till in 
these days at length he fears to offend by say- 



103 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



ing more than, "God bless you;" words you 
know full well to be big with, widest meaning ? 
Nothing, that last well-remembered clasp about 
your shoulders of his arm that slipped gradually 
upward till it was almost about your neck as 
erst when you were boys, and his fervid ex- 
clamation, " Old fellow, I'm still praying for 
you ! Let me say it, I hope yet to see you at 
the feet of Jesus ! " Are you still unpersuaded, 
remembering, as I speak, this good man's late 
coming to the office, the first visit after your 
bereavement, when, standing between you and 
the dingy windows, he spake as no minister 
could speak to you, pointing you upward, till 
past the blank walls and through the gloom of 
nightfall you saw a star of hope shine out, and 
aspirant longings for the great Immortal for the 
moment held you in sweet thrall? They who 
sorrow for us that we are not saved drink the 
cup Christ drank, are baptized with His baptism. 
For our sakes they are killed all the day long. 

To be alone in prayer, is to be with God. 
Yet not alone with God, for all the heavens 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 101 

are full of so great a cloud of witnesses ! Nor 
is this all; the very air seems full, within that 
chamber of so-called secret prayer, of clustered 
forms and faces from out Memory-land, old sins, 
old hopes, old joys and sorrows, old friends and 
blessed mentors crowd about, above, and peer 
out on us ; till it doth seem the little room can 
not contain so vast a company. What use to 
shut the windows, in cowardly search for soli- 
tude, since here are messengers to carry the tid- 
ings that I pray, as far as I am known. A pray- 
ing man will have it writ upon his forehead that 
he prays. His speech bewrayeth him. God is 
pledged that it shall be known openly. 

Thanksgivings for the windows that open 
towards Jerusalem, above the roofs of Babylon, 
the city of our exile. Over in the city of your 
Monday toil your office desk is by a window. 
A street runs at your side, which overlooking 
you see other windows. Within a man is sit- 
ting at his desk. You see him daily for a year, 
or even many years; see him enter mornings, 
remove his outer garments, hang them behind 



102 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



his chair, try his pen, work on. But yon can 
not speak together. The windows do not open. 
Yon observe at times the pantomime of laugh- 
ter and conversation, and wonder what can 
have been said to so amuse him. You note 
him one day careworn; at intervals you miss 
him altogether; then returning bearing some- 
times sadness — was the child dead? — sometimes 
gladness — was the child wed? Where dwell- 
eth he? You can not say. How fares he? 
Like you: for you to him are just such anoth- 
er mystery, behind the closed windows. At 
length he will go out and never return, or it 
may be you departing first, and another Human 
Secret will take the place behind the impene- 
trable casement windows. 

So sits the soul within, behind the closed win- 
dows of the human countenance. You think 
you know me. You do not: nor I you. I do 
declare with gratitude that I have been blessed 
with as good friends as ever mortal man. They 
tread about me sandalled as the angels of bright- 
ness. And yet, for the deepest needs of my 
poor soul, I have no voice to penetrate the glaz- 
ing which sight may pierce but words can not. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



103 



When could I ever speak to them all the long- 
ings of my secret self? 

But between us and our Christ the windows 
are wide open. In secret prayer it is permitted 
unto each of us to commune, soul with Soul, to 
speak and be understood, to tell the whole long 
story of our life, in need, in guilt, in love, and 
fond desire. If we will, we may sit the live- 
long day of life, conscious that each moment 
He is gazing down, within easy reach of faint- 
est whisper. We may watch the play of Divine 
joy and sorrow on that Heavenly Face, as He 
on the face human. 

Without intending it in the least, yet a very 
rich man is in danger of losing out that power 
of comparison needed to appreciate what human 
life really is, life as experienced by the mass of 
humanity. He is never troubled to pay for 
rent, bread, and clothing. Perhaps he never 
sees a bill for personal expenses, but all is 
cared for by his man of affairs. He has pecu- 
niary anxieties to be sure, but they concern 
interest on million- dollar schemes and the 



104 ARE THESE THINGS SO/ 



raising of money in great " blocks." To hear, 
therefore, of some neighbor who stumbles and 
botches his career with such simple things as 
kitchen expenses, fills our prosperous friend 
with impatience; as if the man was needless- 
ly tangled in trifles. Trifles indeed to the 
wealthy; but to the vast majority of his kind 
the serious labor of a life, yes, even to get a 
living; as much so as his great approaching 
payments on ventures whose lines network 
three continents. Hence, if he be not studious 
and reflective, he escapes out of all brotherhood 
with man as he is in bulk. 

I was once present when a rich man, of un- 
doubted nobility of intent, suffered a poor man, 
his brother in the church, to pay the amount 
of nearly a day's wages for a telegram which 
had just come to him over the rich man's wires. 
As we went out, the poor man remarked, "Why 
did he allow me to pay his operator? He is 
known to be generous. How slight a thing to 
have relieved me." Ah! Therein lies the se- 
cret. To him the sum seemed so trifling that 
he no more thought of offering it than you of 
tendering a penny to your pecuniary equal. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 105 



If you had needed a hundred dollars now, it 
would have seemed different to him. 

Every good man, prospered, has found that 
he must descend, putting his ear to the ground- 
mutterings, if he would understand what is yet 
going on in this hard world, since he escaped 
out of it. One must lie close to nature's heart 
to hear the beatings. This great swarming 
creature, Humanity, is for the most part trou- 
bled about trifles; one shoe and how to get 
the next ; it can not beckon and fetch supplies 
like tame doves, but adds and subtracts and 
writhes to make the issue of honesty. He who 
dreads cold, insular exile, will allow himself 
often to be borne along with the lowly. 

That is not the noblest type of character 
which weeps with those that weep, spending 
all its days in going from house to house of 
sorrow, howsoever helpfully; but in scenes of 
gladness feels itself out of place and, mistimed, 
retires. Nor, on the other hand, that butterfly 
character, howsoever innocent and uncalculat- 
ing, a delightful companion and unselfish in 



106 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



our sunshine ; but in scenes of our grief simply- 
bewildered, feeling itself useless and best gone. 
The very noblest type of soul is born of that 
love which professes " Because I love you, when 
you are glad I am glad : when you are sad I am 
sad." Love naturally " rejoices with them that 
do rejoice, and weeps with them that weep." 

A young man of thirty years; bright and 
strong; they have made him the New York 
agent of the great New England manufactory. 
How proud he is leaving the village swains! 
How proud she is of him, and hence consent- 
ing, with brave little heart to his departure and 
their living apart a good round year, brightened 
only by fortnightly visits. That year passed, he 
moves her and the chit to this great town. At 
first it is enough that they are together once 
more; what care they for neighbors? for soci- 
ety? for church? having each other. The new 
house engages her, while he returns nightly to 
slippered ease and tossing his child ; all this at 
first. Then next, hear him at intervals, 

"Mary, you astonish me. How can you be 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



107 



lonely ? This is paradise. Neighbors ? You 
said the lady next door had called. Church? 
Society?" 

"Ah ! John; but the last tack is driven; the 
last picture hung. You are busy the livelong 
day, I get hungry for a friend." 

But he can not fully understand her, though 
the next day, being the Sabbath, this son of a 
New England deacon takes his little family a 
Hudson Eiver excursion ; dropping them at his 
own door by night with further admonitions to 
be content, and sleep. 

Now look again. The child sickens. No one 
comes but the physician. The mother heart, 
watching the hot breathings, is sighing for a 
New England home under the shadow of the 
church, where, when one sickens, a score of 
gentle hands lift the latch and mingle prayers. 
The end has come. The young man looks from 
out his windows for the first time searching, in 
that twilight gloom, for a steeple rising over 
the wilderness of roofs. Why a steeple ? Every 
steeple has a church, and to every church there 
must be a minister. Yes, the undertaker knows 
a clergyman. Then the last scene. There are 



108 ARE THESE THINGS SOP 



chairs enough, elegant, inviting chairs; indeed 
there is no lack of chairs — but friends. Here 
sits her brother, hastened thitherward from 
afar; here one salesman from the store; here 
two business friends, who have an interest 
trade-wise in the young mans good- will; here 
the next door neighbor, good soul; here and 
here ? Emptiness. The clergyman is not a 
pastor with intimate love and sympathy; the 
undertaker introduces him very formally; when, 
stepping to the one ray of light, he reads in 
hackneyed and perfunctory tone — "Although 
affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither 
doth trouble spring out of the ground, for man 
is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward,'' 
— and so forth to the gloomy end. 

Not a pastor of us in this great city, but has 
been called to be an actor in such scenes many 
times in many a year. 

It may be, at length, that the young man 
realizes that he can not well live alone, but 
needs a church and all its blessed fraternity. 

In sharp contrast with all this. I bethink 
me, within view of this church to-night there 
lies in a sick man's anguish a faithful member 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



109 



of our company whose face was here in all yes- 
terdays. And round about him is that lavish- 
ment of care that doth besiege his door with 
hourly inquiry, while this whole great brother- 
hood, deeply moved, doth wear him as a jewel 
on its troubled bosom. 

Christ was conscious of eternity. We are 
conscious of little segments of time. By effort 
of memory you can become conscious of a yes- 
terday. Closing the eyes you bethink you of 
where and how you spent the evening, the af- 
ternoon, the morning. You trace backward till 
you repossess yourself of time till — you slept, 
and in dreamless sleep. No. We are not con- 
scious of a day. By effort, not easily, we re- 
possess ourselves of twenty or forty or sixty 
years, approximately. Events of national his- 
tory, where we resided, when we were wed, 
births to us and deaths to us. Some men can 
retrace and gather up in consciousness the life- 
thread back to three years of age. This distance 
reveals only a single striking event probably. 

Christ, the I Am, was conscious of Eternity. 



110 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



Moses? I gave him being. Abraham? Be- 
cause I am he was. The dim prehistoric men ? 
I girded them. The stars? I trimmed their 
wicks and touched them with my torch. The 
nebulous immensity ? I am conscious of all this 
and more. My consciousness runs back, and 
back — The quiet student, in the silence of his 
room, becomes bewildered, and springs from his 
chair to put these thoughts away, lest the brain 
reel, for who can endure to think out Eternity ? 

Souls get a religious soreness, which is the 
"being broken," or bruised, of which Christ 
speaks when He says, "Whosoever falleth on 
this stone shall be broken." He adds another 
effect more terrible, u On whom it falls it shall 
grind him to powder," by which must be in- 
tended something vastly more irremediable. 
In our boyhood, when behind some protecting 
hedge w^e had stolen off the shoe to run with 
a bare foot, we got what we called in juvenile 
terminology a "stone-bruise," the books would 
call it contusion. It is a most serious hurt; 
yet there is no outward sign of injury. The 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? Ill 

cuticle is not even broken, but the whole sub- 
jacent tissue becomes a ganglion of pain. One 
limps with traumatic agony. The limping is a 
telltale at home. The recovery is slow. One 
can not sleep, for the pressure of softest bed 
linen. In soul-life there comes a moment of 
decision. Instead of accepting Christ as a cor- 
ner-stone, the hapless unrepentant stumbles 
against Him in rejection. The soul thereafter 
never has religious ease. Every new ism is 
read. One is perpetually arguing with believ- 
ers, till fireside and office are notorious relig- 
ious debating clubs. The Scriptures are conned 
from cover to cover, for proof-texts of the false ; 
yet such familiarity with God's word has no 
power to heal the old sore. Pious strangers, 
upon a first introduction, regard the case as 
most hopeful and request the pastor or deacons 
to call. Yet it is an old story, " ever learning, 
never coming to a knowledge of the truth. " 
Sometimes these bruises lead to religious in- 
sanity, so that men decline to talk with this 
monomaniac astride his wild hobby. Some- 
times to nodular abnormities of belief, like tu- 
mors, one eventuating a Spiritualist, another a 



112 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



Pessimist philosopher, another with vagaries so 
strange that he classes himself with no school. 

If these unfortunates reject our Christ and 
His Gospel, if they are fully content in their 
superior beliefs, why do they not leave Him 
and His alone, calmly dismissed to the limbo 
of myths ? Why so constantly concerned about 
the Gospel faith? Because it is a heart-hurt. 
A wounded spirit, who can bear it ? It is relig- 
ious soreness. The soul knows, in every pang 
and twinge of its unrest, the corner-stone that 
caused the bruise, and must ever go on, through 
life, repeating His name, " Christ ! Christ ! " not 
as the sainted worshipper, but as one who must 
give account to himself why he is in pain. 

That majestic consciousness of life from out 
which Christ confesses I am Alpha and Omega, 
who of us can comprehend it ? W e are conscious 
of death coming nearer and nearer. He only 
has immortal life dwelling in Himself. To gaze 
on Him, is to have such thoughts as sick men 
entertain when robust friends enter their cham- 
ber. 4 You are conscious of life Though you 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 113 



know you are mortal, yet, having no aches to- 
day, you feel it in your bones that you will see 
the new year ; you are conscious of sweet May, 
as if its blossoms were not four months away; 
and of the midsummer, in which you are laying 
pleasure-plans even now. You are conscious 
of twenty years hence. I, however, am con- 
scious of death. I am moribund. I am fad- 
ing. I shall be cold in June. Looking upon 
you, I long to cling about you, who will live, 
that I may live. But I should die just the 
same on your shoulders." 

Looking upon Christ, mortal man longs to 
survive the centuries ; and, praying to be taken 
up into His life-embrace, is sweetly answered 
with the assurance, 64 Where I am there ye shall 
be also. Because I live ye shall live." This 
consciousness of death is everywhere observable 
in the lives of men who reject Christ. Their 
wealth is felt to be evanescent, their pleas- 
ures or pursuits of knowledge bounded by a 
not distant horizon of night. They must eat 
and drink, for to-morrow they die. They are 
like tourists in the shortening December days. 

Haste, drive fast and hard ! It is midafter- 
8 



114 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



noon, and already the sunbeams slip from 
the valley. Pound your hoofs, oh steeds, for it 
is twilight now! Hurry! It is getting so 
dark and cold. The children of light, on the 
contrary, are everywhere conscious of life. No 
need of hosts have they. Already they claim 
the conditions of a high, holy, timeless noon. 

God can beset a man so closely, before and 
behind, that the poor soul experiences as it were 
an arrest. "He has laid His hand upon me." 
Such approaches are very startling. They make 
a break in our habitual living. Life becomes 
suddenly very new and strange. It is like the 
hard hand of the bailiff upon gay Lothario in 
the midst of wine and wassail. How new and 
strange, Lothario, from the hot chandeliers of 
pleasure to the lone corridor lamp that swings 
and twinkles feebly through the fan-light of 
thy hospital chamber. In one night the long- 
abused nerves gave way : and it has been a year 
of forced abstention, of surgeons and crutches. 
It has been medicine, not wine, by the hour. 
Do you say Fate ? Then have it so. But were 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



115 



it I, it should be a heavenly Father who had laid 
a hand of loving arrest upon me, to save. 

As I stood in the national mint watching the ♦ 
dropping out of new gold coins, the old simile 
got new force, as every day of the year now 
closing seemed from the mills of God to have 
dropped out to me, each a new creation. Sleep 
is cousin to death ? Yes. My evening fatigue 
is the wasting disease. My bed is a grave. 
Every new sun is a resurrection morning. 
"When I wake I am still with thee." Three 
hundred and three -score times has the great 
Father renewed my youth, for waking I am as a 
boy again. As often has He proclaimed new 
sunbeams, air, hours and opportunities, as truly 
as if I had never had them before. Wrong, 
each new creation I might right myself. And 
when the day was wasted, the old yesterday 
gone, soiled, clipped by the coin-clippers, squan- 
dered for pleasure, lost in the gutter, smelted 
and beaten into gewgaws, He has granted new 
issuance. Take this, and this. It is not even 
yet too late. 



116 



ARE THESE THINGS SOP 



The Omnipotent is dealing with you and hold- 
ing you daily before the gates of Opportunity. 
In Trafalgar Square stands a single granite 
shaft with a man upon its top. It is a stone 
man, Nelson. It was standing there nine years 
ago to my knowledge. It will keep its place 
for centuries, looking down upon the swarming 
thousands. Further down the thoroughfare are 
the Horse Guards. In his little sentry box a 
man, motionless even to the waveless plume 
above his frowning visage. He was there when 
I saw London first, and when I returned he had 
not moved. He might be thought to face the 
stone man. He is there to-day. It costs some- 
thing to assure a living man in the sentry box 
facing outward. The one you saw is not the one 
I saw, for my guardsman is dead, or has served 
out his time, and another and another in the 
red has taken the place. The astonishing thing 
with you is that the Omnipotent has kept you 
day by day face to face with Opportunity like the 
stone Nelson. Through sleeping and eating, 
through sickness and health, through all the 
vicissitudes of a changeful human state, each 
day has seen you standing before Repentance. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



117 



You can enter in to-day, as you could a year 
ago. The church, the prayer-meeting, the cross 
of Christ, you can embrace to-day as truly as in 
any day of the year gone. How long will you 
indulge the habit of rejection, in the face of 
such creative service exerted in behalf of your 
indolent impotence ? 

We each can recall a prodigy, a veritable Ad- 
mirable Crichton, whom we have known. Pa- 
rental testimony for it that he smiled in recog- 
nition at two months of age; at three months 
his right hand clasped his elder brother s toy, 
struggling for possession; at nine months he 
was on his feet. We remember how his right 
arm was a sceptre on the playground. He couJd 
throw a stone farther than any other lad upon 
the village green, and with one upstretched 
hand lift his body till the chin touched the 
knuckles, and again ! and again ! He could out- 
run, outskate, outleap the school. He could en- 
dure drenching, but never coughed. Concern- 
ing the curriculum, he had but to glance at 
the page to master the lesson, while we had 



118 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



as yet but begun to toil; and the bulk of the 
time was his for mischief. Ask him the mid- 
way point of a line. There ; measure to verify 
that his eye was accurate. That was his gift. 
He had many such " gifts" or intuitions. He 
swept all the prizes in. He was petted. People 
came to prognosticate his sure future, foretell- 
ing that that young man had but to make his 
choice and succeed in any thing. "Yes," an- 
swered his parents, "we try to be grateful to 
a kind Providence for such an offspring. Our 
other children? We want it distinctly under- 
stood that we love them all with equal affection. 
But — " and that but was like a knife in the 
hearts of the other children; till at last they 
all agreed to lay every thing at the feet of this 
child of destiny. 

Well, what sequel? We have lived to ob- 
serve this child of gifts the only failure of that 
household group. His plodding brothers are 
with us, respectable citizens, while he is strand- 
ed, a poor wreck years ago. The Great Preach- 
er said, " Wouldst thou enter into life ? Cut off 
thy right hand, and right foot, and pluck out 
thy right eye." He surely taught us, consonant 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



119 



with events as we have marked them, that it is 
possible for great natural endowments to be a 
hindrance, an " offence," unless consecrated by 
the cross; that they necessitated a most rig- 
orous warfare with self; that they might so 
imperil eternal life that their lack had been 
advantage. 

That the world does not welcome the simple 
old truths of the Gospel, but hungers for the 
eccentric and new, is but an added reason why 
we should press the old upon its attention with 
redoubled energy. Energy in business affairs is 
but kindled afresh and hardened by opposition, 
in the breasts of all successful men. Opposition 
to the healthy minded should be like the prick 
of spurs in flanks that knot into the hardness of 
steel, and recoil for fresh strides, tossing off the 
sting. 

Here and there you will meet a man whose 
motto is, I can wait. Measure him carefully, for 
in any department of life he is a tremendous 



120 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



competitor. Born poor, lie began to mutter his 
motto when other lads rode on horses while he 
must walk. I can wait. He muttered it again 
when a readier intellect bore off the valedictory 
and other school-day honors. This plodder,* I 
can wait. Again when Acres and Croesus in- 
herited their patrimony entering into life ; when 
impecunious impatients claimed wives while he, 
attic-sheltered must eat a lone crust, pursuing 
professional rudiments, I can wait. Election 
after election has passed and he won not, but 
he will, for he can wait. You will find such 
a man, at times, standing under storm-clouds 
black as night, with defeat hanging from the 
sky at every turn; yet calmly saying, "Wait! 
If I can only hold me, why every thing mortal 
passes away in time. This shall pass, but, pass- 
ing, find me waiting." Such patience, coupled 
with the consciousness of strength to match, is 
illustrious. 

What, however, to a strong will is but an 
easy resolution to develop slowly, waiting in 
its great continence, is not a simple task to 
many of us Hotspurs. Is there no hope for us ? 
Thank God, we may partake of the Divine Pa- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 121 

tience. It is a gift to suppliants. If we are 
God's dear children, then we may adopt as our 
motto "I can wait, for my times are in His 
hands. I am a child of eternities." 

A painter, whose quest is art, may have no 
patience to listen as you tell of Stephenson ; but 
that he has no interest in Eaphael or Angelo ? 
One can hardly credit that. If I must ascend 
Mt. Blanc, I who have as yet never, what fool 
am I to hesitate over a guide's dress, the comeli- 
ness or homeliness of his face, or the timbre of 
his voice ! A sure foot, an eagle eye, and expe- 
rience are the qualities to be sought; though, 
possessing these in my guide, I shall not cast 
him off because he can sing a song to wake the 
Alpine echoes. 

If my quest is the Gospel way of life, it would 
seem natural to seek the pious scholar, to study 
the Fathers, and to be quite indifferent to per- 
sonal presence. Is it not a strange thing that, 
with individual exceptions, the religious teach- 
ers, who, from age or study and experience of 
grace f have the weightiest things to say are not 



122 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



the ones at whose feet the multitude of religious 
students — in other words Sabbath congregations 
— gather ? Of men w T hose quest is by no means 
piety, being "worldly minded," you would ex- 
pect this; but you are puzzled when finding 
such relish for "the house that Jack built" or 
oratorical trick and oddity in those who should 
hunger and thirst after righteousness. 

Judging a priori one would sketch the preach- 
ing scene; — given a great-hearted apostle, him- 
self rich in grace, with lifted hand to command 
attention. Then the ready assembly saying, 
"To us is given to toil; to you to stand aside 
and think. To us are given few hours away 
from shop, anvil, or distaff; to you to sit at the 
Master s feet with the open scroll. Speak to us 
as He has spoken to you." Then with voice 
clear and strong, — he ought to care for his voice 
— with facile diction — a studious vigilance will 
have afforded him that — looking men in the 
face and not upon a sheet of paper, because ut- 
tering forth that which to him is the abundance 
of his heart; a message which possesses him so 
that he could not keep silence ; a fervor which 
lifts the chin, kindles the eye, glows upon the 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



123 



cheek, as upon the face of untaught childhood 
whenever it narrates; he declares the artless 
story of Christ anew : the story that tells of par- 
don, peace, and power to escape from sin. 

There are converts to be met with in every 
church who seem to feel apologetic towards 
the rest of mankind for having become con- 
verted at all ; like the one early apple-tree filled 
with blossoms when others have but leaves, 
begging pardon of neighboring Eussets and 
Baldwins, with the assurance that as early as 
may be it will shake down its fragrant petals 
and resume the prevalent fashion of the lag- 
gard orchard; barring that, of course, in a se- 
cret self-complacency, it will hold its advantage, 
growing its fruit hidden behind dull leaves. 
Converts there are who seem to have regarded 
the publicity of their baptism as a necessary 
yet annoying conspicuousness ; which now hav- 
ing been attended to, they trust may as soon 
as possible suffer rasure from the world's recol- 
lection, allowing them to re-enter the worldly 
— not immoral — circles which previously wel- 



124 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



corned them. They say, " Keceive us. Yon will 
not find us greatly changed. We shall trouble 
you with no long sermons. "We have, to be 
sure, stepped apart for a moment to secure such 
soul assurance as our consciences would suffer 
us no longer to postpone, though doubtless, in 
your judgment, men of the world, foolishly so- 
licitous. But, with your permission, what is it 
to you, if in non-business hours, we assemble in 
a church? In markets and pleasure halls Ave 
shall strive to be still hail-fellows well met." 

In the name of the Divine Manhood of Christ 
Jesus, whose confession worked His death, what 
craven folly is this ! If a soul is ambrosial with 
heavenly graces of the new life, shall it borrow 
garlics that it may smell like the groundlings ? 
Shall the giant stoop that he may not overtop 
dwarfs ? To whom must you apologize for fol- 
lowing what seems to you the command of the 
King of kings and Lord of lords ? 

It would doubtless be very inconvenient if 
iron were mutable into lead, if steel might 
change to wood. The constant properties of 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 125 

matter seem indispensable. There has always 
been a desire to assert a like permanency in 
human character; it would be so much more 
convenient for the rest of us — not speaking of 
the unhappy wretch himself — if a man known 
to be of bad character for instance, could be 
labelled " untrustworthy." That ends it. Write 
it against his name in commercial registers, on 
his forehead in society. Bad to-day, bad to- 
morrow. No mistakes need be made; no pity, 
nor tears, nor exhortations need be wasted; find 
out which way he walks, and walk all upright 
men another. But are these things so? Paul 
says, " Put off the old man, with his deeds, and 
put on the new, renewed in righteousness and 
true holiness." Saul of Tarsus, the murderous 
persecutor, becomes the most imposing figure 
of brotherly love. The abandoned woman be- 
comes a memorial type of humble piety. The 
thief on the cross passes into Paradise a fit in- 
habitant. Stone becomes flesh in the divine 
metaphor of a changed heart. Nero dead may 
be labelled ; Nero living may not be, for he may 
yet become a Paul. It is the testimony of the 
journeying church still, that those hitherto 



I 



126 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 

abiding states of mind underlying and coloring 
personality, forming what we variously term 
disposition or character, may suffer change, so 
that a soul has a new life and a holy. 

We must needs use material illustrations of 
spiritual things with caution. Let your discre- 
tion follow me. A new heart, a new life, a new 
man, a new birth, and self, are the phrases we 
would study, professing as they do to mirror 
that great change, the chief boon of the Gospel. 
In regions of antiquity a traveller stands gaz- 
ing at an unfallen yet ruin-marked wall. This 
graceful pillar — save that it is thrown from 
the perpendicular ; noble architrave and capi- 
tal — though chipped by false bearings; seams 
through the white blocks, into which rubble 
and dust have fallen, festering in the moist 
air and distilling noisome stains beneath. The 
observer detects the cause, in foundation stones 
displaced and crumbling. To pull out, to re- 
place decay with strength, renewing at the bot- 
tom is at least necessary, and promises to pre- 
serve the superstructure in whatever is worthy, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



127 



affording also security for whatever must be 
restored or newly fashioned. There are such 
fundamental dispositions underlying the self of 
every man. The charge of depravity does not 
signify absolute destitution of all graces in the 
superincumbent character. The natural man 
may be intellectually cultured, aesthetic, affec- 
tionate, and practical, with varying degrees, in 
sterling deeds. But these all are " thrown," as 
the architect would say, bearing the marks of 
ruin. To dream of renewal in the governing 
principles, by the miraculous grace of God, for 
Christ's sake, so that Faith, Hope, and Love lie 
at the base, is not a vain aspiration to the 
reader of the New Testament. 

As I have observed lambs, caught out of 
the flock that they might receive the distin- 
guishing mark of the owner, often a red cross 
in pigments, fly back again, shaking that flank, 
twitching the fleece that bore the mark, and 
seeking to lose themselves in the thick of the 
multitude ; so do some Christians uneasily wear 
the publicity of that hour they came out from 



9 



128 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



the world before the Church, and, painfully self- 
conscious that they are known recently to have 
"made a profession," shrink from the cross, will- 
ing to hide His name in their foreheads. Still 
the Good Shepherd patiently suffers them, hop- 
ing they will yet follow Him whithersoever He 
goeth, and become accustomed to the honor of 
His name in their foreheads. 

A correct conception of the divine "goodness" 
will make the conceiver good. A conception of 
divine mercy which allows the conceiver him- 
self to be cruel ! or of divine gentleness which 
allows in one's self a hateful tongue, an unchari- 
table spirit, an utter disregard of a fellow creat- 
ure's sensibilities ! This is not God's goodness. 
It should be called God's partiality. The way- 
ward, spoiled child attributes such "goodness" 
to the foolish parent whom he knows "will 
always decide I am not at fault." 

God's goodness is no such mawkish thing. 
His goodness takes in all men. Therefore it 
forbids selfishness and injustice on my part, 
since every other man is as precious to Him 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



129 



as am I. His goodness then must defend and 
punish. His Son Jesus Christ is under that 
protection. His own character and dignity 
also. He must be good to Himself. I am 
under that protection; and if I injure myself, 
I, the sinner against self, must expect protec- 
tion against myself, and punishment. God's 
goodness is the universal law, substantiating 
all rights. Sin is the breaking over and spo- 
liation of some one's rights: His, my fellows, 
or my own. Therefore goodness must rebuke, 
restrain, and punish sin. 

The duties of religion are duties owed to a 

Person — not relations with an impersonal law. 

Men too often forget this. A farmer fences off 

his pasture lands, subdivides with hurdles, and 

puts the cattle in. The fences and hurdles have 

no feeling, but are nerveless wood, alive enough 

to have sap and leaves till made into fences, 

though now not vital enough to bleed sap nor 

long keep their shrivelled leaves. Undertake to 

leap the fence. It does not hurt the farmer nor 

the fence. You are hurt, being scratched and 
9 



130 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



torn; so climb back again. The brush springs 
again into place. Can that be the Divine Gov- 
ernment ? Behind every law is a Person. Law 
is the wish of a Person. 

We are very apt to care but little what we 
do with a fence (law) so long as we go unhurt. 
Here is just my trouble as a preacher. My mes- 
sage is " Thou art a sinner." The ready reply is 
"Have I robbed any one? against what man in 
trade, what neighbor, friend or kinsman have 
I borne false witness ? at whose sorrow have I 
laughed? Tell me, whom have I wronged?" 
Of men it may be no one. But confess, have 
there been no sinful thoughts in your heart in 
all these years ? " Of course ! That is human." 
Is not every sinful thought against God's wish ? 
"Ah! It is of God you are speaking. But we 
never see God. I have wronged no person." 
You have : He is a Person. 

If I stand upon the northern shore of Poccico 
Lake I am twenty miles from the southern end. 
A placid sheet of water like a mirror stretches 
farther than the eye can see. From Indian 
Rock I heave into that mirror a boulder. The 
resultant wave runs over to the hotel dock, now 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



131 



up to Pine Point, five miles away. Being a 
Sophomore and fresh from Hydrostatics, I know 
that by displacement and displacement the wave 
will' run on ten miles away, and at length strike 

the beach at P twenty miles away. But no 

delicate tideometer could test it away there. 
It amounts to nothing. Men seem to feel that, 
somehow by one life striking against another, 
human sin or virtue will eventually beat its lit- 
tle resultant effect at the foot of the Great 
White Throne, "but it amounts to nothing." 
True, it amounts to nothing, if that be all. The 
words the Scripture uses however to describe the 
effect of human lives on Deity are " Grieved," 
"Bruised," "Wounded," "Hating" (indignant) 
"Loving," "Punishing." These are Personal 
characterizations. 

If one would get correct ideas of the relations 
we bear to God let him think of servant, of 
debtor, of friend, of child. These are intelligi- 
ble earthly relations. They are also the terms 
scattered all through the Scripture description 
of human duty. When we think of a Divine 
Person, then not to love is sin ; to forget is sin ; 
to doubt, to withhold worship are sins. It is 



132 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



not necessary to strike a parent to sin against 
liim ; to withhold sympathy is to inflict pain and 
to -wrong that parent. It is here that mere at- 
titudes of mind rise into tremendous importance, 
so that the heart may be said to be right or not 
right with God. 

Three little elfs meet for an afternoon with 
dolls ; good, ordinary dolls ; dolls that have seen 
service to be sure and bear the marks like hon- 
orable scars, yet capable of affording a world of 
pleasure yet to contented minds. A fourth child 
flits in, engaging little fairy whom you ache to 
clasp, mincing along. She dandles something 
rare in dolldom. Ah ! Apple of discord. First 
they admire, then they covet, then, alas, that 
such should be under skins so tender, they 
envy. Proof? The three retreat into a corner 
by themselves and train their batteries on this 
mimic matron with the sumptuous plaything. 
"Red morocco shoes indeed! I would not have 
it if I could!" Chorus: "Nor we" — In fact 
they are dying to. " Real lace indeed ! Who 
would ever know it ? " Every one of them 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



133 



knows it better than her prayers. And irrele- 
vant detraction, cumulatively, till one cute cut- 
ter with the tongue caps the climax with a 
thrust that brings the tears ; and all fall a- weep- 
ing, who began an hour ago with laughing. 

Children of a larger growth are vexed by 
dolls. Why does our faithful family physician, 
bronzed, bearded stout-heart whom we love and 
on whom w^e lean, begin to scowl at the bare 
mention of a brother healer having crossed our 
threshold yesterday ? Why does the artist flare, 
instantly, we meet another artist in our w r alk? 
What aileth the musician, now that some one 
else sits at the piano? Can not the preacher 
forget the doll, now dandled in the conversation, 
better dressed than the one his good knees have 
just been tossing ? And this writer of' books, 
reviews, and leaders, can he not see us laugh- 
ing behind our fans at his pounce upon that 
other quill, bethinking us of the babes we have 
just soothed to slumber in the nursery above ? 

As in the August heavens clouds are fash- 
ioned into towers and battlements, with march- 



134 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



ing processions all in white innocence, and gor- 
geous thrones of pleasure — yet out of reach! 
Couches of repose rolled out, and curtains of 
content looped back, all in sight of the toiler on 
the dusty plain — yet out of reach! As vaults 
of cloud -born gold tumble out their massy 
wealth, before the eyes of plodding penury; 
and faces of the lost, and radiant forms seem 
standing upon the cloudy plain — yet out of 
reach and out of hearing too ! As ponderous 
bars of light seem drawn to make a cloud rift 
before the western windows of grim Sing Sing, 
as if may be there stand the everlasting doors 
which are about to be lifted up — yet upon look- 
ing again a prison wall and only the confines 
of a felon's cell ! So over youth and age, sin- 
bound and fettered to the clod, rise visions of 
what we would be, could we. The dream of 
virtue seems real enough; to be sure we are 
awake if ever when we cry, " I would do good." 
But the next breath must lament, "Evil is then 
present with me." The cloudland is not more 
inaccessible. There is not a virtue but the 
vilest has some time seen, and loved and 
grasped at it — out of reach! God! Must 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 135 



we ever fail? What means then the promise, 
"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after 
righteousness, for they shall be filled?" 

There are two kinds of decay, as I have ob- 
served in the North Woods. A tree in a marsh 
falls, wind-stricken, and stretching out its weary 
length, consumes through and through. Moss 
grows on it like wool. Fungus springs out of 
it, breathing miasms. You step upon it the bet- 
ter to cast a line, and a boot-heel cleaves it to 
the core, rolling out a bed of yellow mould on 
which you sprawl. There is moral decay like 
this. Some men are clean gone to ruin. They 
are depraved through and through. Their pres- 
ence breeds fevers. Whoso puts a trust in 
them, will split their bad shells open with the 
pressure the temptation brings to bear. 

But upon the sandy pasture knolls I have 
seen the tall monarch, Eock-maple, dead, of one 
scarce knows what, bleached into decay. The 
leaves are not, yet every branch and twig is 
there. The bark is long peeled off, the stalk 
standing white and polished unto glistening in 



136 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



the torrid glare of summer's noon. Eains and 
hail, and south winds have made this ruin hard 
as iron. Cattle rub against its burnished sides, 
till the lifeless boughs chatter like rattling teeth 
in a fleshless jaw-bone. You could break an 
axe-edge on its flint. It will fall with the 
century. It is dead — and not buried. 

There be men whose souls are dead within 
them. Their moral sense is utterly decayed. 
They have discovered a meaning of "depravity" 
far different from the other class. Yet how ele- 
gant they are! How polished, graceful, edu- 
cated, rich ! They wear becoming faces at fu- 
neral scenes — yet the thought of immortality is 
but to them as idle tales. Their very oaths, in 
club -rooms, are spoken with a sort of grace. 
They do not enjoy life. They do not hate life. 
They pray not. They fear not. They have no 
sap of tears. They tempt the lightning stroke. 
It will come. 

When souls come to the desperate extremity 
in wrong-doing they seek to be unknown, to be 
lost in a crowd. The Magdalene had a false 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 137 



name : her last act before suicide tearing out of 
a handkerchief, the one article with her real 
name, the inscribed corner. I suppose there are 
thousands of unwatched men and women in our 
great city. Neighbors know them not. Trades- 
men are paid cash, no names appear. The post- 
man is never welcomed, or with a fictitious 
name. But no one is able to escape recogni- 
tion. Given time enough and a hand will clap 
the lost man on the shoulder in Broadway with 
" Charley ! " and those shoulders will quiver like 
aspens. 

How absurd — that man can hide himself. 
Nature denies it. If he walks in the sand, she 
says, " Here's where he stepped." In snows, 
"Here I marked it." In dewy meadows, "Here's 
his track, with the dew knocked off." If one 
plunge into forests, plucking wild fruit, "Here," 
says Nature, "I checked off his debt with the 
white stub of the berry." In the lone room of 
a great city, who has not felt it? the confined 
air is populous with faces, faces of the dead, and 
vocal with voices, voices of duty ; till one rushes 
forth to meet living men — avIio may detect him. 
tl I can not escape myself — and God ! " 



138 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



Why not then be sweetly found of Him who 
cometh to seek and to save the lost sheep of the 
house of Israel ? 

That lone man upon a mast, in the middle of 
the ocean ; five hundred were with him yester- 
day upon the ship, and now only two; another 
night and only one ; a high hot noon, and only 
a hound hugs the wretched raft with him; an- 
other night, and alone ! Sea-mews have de- 
serted the chase, so far he drifts to sea. 

I suppose one thinks then " London has mil- 
lions. Broadway, at the corner of Fulton Street 
is crowded. I have stood there with these feet. 
That same Dipper, in the North Heavens, I have 
looked on from my door. It looks in at my door 
now. I am dying alone." Think of it, ye who 
hear; for the fairest voyage may end so with 
you to-morrow. Within call of that cracked 
voice are millions on millions of living beings, 
and a Being. " Seeing then we are compassed 
about by so great a cloud of witnesses," where 
shall man despair? 

Stephen saw Heaven open. The opening Hea- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 139 

vens! The word fascinates. Those impenetra- 
ble curtains, through which spirits come and 
go, looped back! Jacob saw the doors flung 
wide ; the shepherds too, at Bethlehem ; and the 
throng on Jordan's bank. The five hundred 
saw it when Christ went up. In every case 
on record, Heaven opened on man's sight has 
shown all Heaven on the ivatch! It has been a 
crisis in the life of nations, or of man. Stephen 
saw Christ risen to His feet, u standing" beside 
the throne. 

There are two ways out of trouble. The way 
up, by means of which you live above it in the 
realm of duty. The way down, by means of 
which you live below it in the realm of "I- 
don't-care." The saint takes one. The drunk- 
ard takes the other. The martyr takes one, per 
suaded that God is able to keep that committed 
to His hands. The vagabond takes the other, 
knowing that he has nothing to lose; he has 
abandoned his baggage of virtues and treasures. 



140 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



A group of firemen sat in their engine house 
to feast their anniversary. They have invited 
in the " veterans." They eat — they remember. 
Which is the keenest delight, the memory of 
the terrible eight and forty hours in which you 
played the hero, carrying the nozzle through the 
door-way from which a hundred citizens had 
shrunk dismayed, or the present banquet ? The 
pleasure of heroic deeds, or — a piece of pie ? 

Yet here is all the difference between noble 
and ignoble men. When we come to think of 
it, self-sacrifice has its own high reward. But 
observe how slow we are to win it with the 
denial of an appetite. The cross of Christ is 
no esoteric secret. It inheres in the constitu- 
tion of things; even the commonest things. 

I have seen from a sultry hill-top in Indian 
summer time, two opposing winds meet on the 
plain below ; the sickly, enervating south wind 
and the healthy, brisk north wind bringing 
new life upon its wings. They grapple. They 
swing round and round in spiral wrath, tear- 
ing corn-stalk, and early fallen leaves, and lift- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



141 



ing dust in clouds. Twisting back and forth 
across the arena, my hopes are all with the 
cool north, bringing change of weather and 
clear skies ; I am eager to help. But who could 
help the winds, except to hope and pray? At 
length my side conquers, pushing over the foe, 
catching it up and away, and I am glad. 

You and I have been spectators of a conflict 
between two natures within our own breasts. 
Our sympathies have all been with the good 
nature. Spirit of God, blowing where thou list- 
est, prevail thou ! I rejoice to know this better 
part dwells in me. It is an ally of my own 
better part. This debate, this opposing war is 
shocking. Then the good prevails indeed, and 
the soul is safe. Strange that I should be an 
on-looker, powerless but to pray, yet such is 
the seeming at times. 

A speculator buys a barren tract of land, think- 
ing he foresees a fortune, and holds and holds it 
for a rise ; but the city grows another way. He 
turns it into a vegetable garden, fighting its 
sterility and weeds courageously; but the cold, 



142 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



rocky soil is utterly perverse. Discouraged, lie 
is ready to abandon it, Why should one battle 
thus with nature, when there is no mercantile 
value in the conquest? 

There be men whose idea of moral character 
is equally mercenary. So much of self-subju- 
gation and correction, of sin-cure and habit- 
cure as will be of profit in the society markets 
where they seek to pass — this, and no more. 
The weary struggle for such inward or exalted 
virtues as the marketmen and market women 
will not buy? Let the weeds grow, rather. 

A New England lad was this other. Fortune 
made in Sandwich Islands, there is nothing 
in this world he has looked forward to with 
such love and longing, as the purchase of that 
rough old Vermont farm, where he was born, 
and his father died. Himself an old man, it is 
his at length. There were seven of them, but 
all are scattered, penniless or dead, but him. 
With his staff he plods among the workmen 
grubbing out the orchard knoll with its six 
graves of soiled and sunken marbles. Love 
never loses patience. He works the scanty 
soil painfully, spreading it above the rocks, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 143 

which prick the farm's hide like starvation 
bones. He extirpates, stalk by stalk, the bull's 
eye and the thistle, and makes gray ledges 
smile with yellow grain. Penurious neighbors 
stand astonished at the gangs of help, the lav- 
ishment of outgo. "He will never get his 
money back ! " 

But the fond old soul laughs within his own 
breast. "Money back? 1 guess not. I've got 
the home back." 

And when the old twigs and vines have again 
been trained above the door; when the box- 
wood of a departed sister's planting has been 
once more made border the path to the gate; 
when fond love has forced great wealth to con- 
quer time's decay as near as may be in this 
changeful world, then he sits upon the thresh- 
old looking out upon the noble hills with — 

" Father, mother, brother, sister ! Oh that 
my own folk could come back, and move in." 
And but for this, he is content. 

There be men to whom the soul, purchased 
by the death of Calvary, is so dear, that to see 
it all-submissive at that Master's feet is its own 
exceeding great reward. The love of Christ 



144 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



constrains them, not the market-price. To get 
again the innocence of childhood, by that grace 
that maketh "as a little child" ; to realize the 
manhood of a boy's pure dreams ; to possess the 
peace dreamed of in holiest hours of later sin- 
vexed years; to know that God knows one's 
nature conquered by His love, even in every 
secret part — this is the prize of their declining 
years, the outside world being ignorant of their 
surpassing inward beauty and content. 

Argue with the backslider ? Why he knows 
the whole argument by heart, from firstly to 
tenthly. Nothing will touch him but passion 
— a passion of love for that deserted Master, 
whose death on the cross is called a passion, 
surging in again upon this abandoned soul. 

There has wandered the streets of New York 
for months a homeless vagabond. He was a 
soldier of the last war. He was heroic. He 
was with Sheridan, that day at Winchester. 
He has scars. He came home after peace, to 
find his place forfeited, and nothing to do for 
bread. He wasted his hard hire soon, and 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 145 

roved a drunkard, outcast. Who has not 44 ar- 
gued " with him ? Old friends ; such kindred as 
could track him ; comrades of that Grand Army 
Post which claimed but could not reclaim him. 
" Boys, it's no use. I have no resolution left ! " 

Yesterday Sheridan headed the holiday pa- 
rade, and we with all the town looked on. 
The vagabond looked on, looked on Broadway 
full from curb to curb, with bands and banners. 
Does he see aright ? His old leader ! A thou- 
sand memories swell the passion of his soul. 
There is a halt, but if there were not it would 
have been the same. With one wild bound 
he is past all barriers, and grasping stirrup — 
" General ! I was with you that day. Oh, those 
were days when I was indeed a man. It's a 
wretched fall among the swine! Great Heav- 
ens, if I could only go with you now and ever ! 
May I?" One's hero ever has such power to 
charm, to awaken. 

It may be a hymn, sung to the praise of 

Jesus; a dying friend's last praise to Jesus; a 

word from the Book, which will not down but 

gets a ringing in the soul to the praise of Jesus. 

"Friend of publicans and sinners. Friend of 
10 



146 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



publicans and sinners." Somewhere the luke- 
warm soul sees again what argument could not 
make him see, and cries — 

" My old Master ! Take me back again ! " 

It is night now, and quite probably the sea- 
son of the moon. It is not the dead of night, 
for Nicodemus would hardly break in upon a 
stranger's sleep. But the streets are growing 
quiet after pilgrims and holiday loiterers. J eru- 
saleni is an orderly, a religious city; at any 
rate he hesitates not to walk alone, and passes 
almost unperceived. He had called may be, 
one of those Galilean peasants to his side in 
the crowds of the Temple that day, asking, 
"Where does your master Jesus lodge?" If 
so he had received a courteous and truthful 
answer. 

Conning the direction, with some sober vest- 
ment donned above the glittering robes with 
which he had been present at the evening sac- 
rifice, Nicodemus turns his back upon the 
Temple marbles, gold in the rising moon- 
beams, passes under the dark of Antonio's cas- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



147 



tie, threads the narrower, humbler ways at 
length, seeking the Man of Sorrows. His feet 
are unused to these rough quarters; and paus- 
ing at intervals, the white beard lifted inquir- 
ingly for some guidance of a street name — 
" Had I not done better to have forgotten this 
peasant? Yet Isaiah was peasant too. I might 
better, may be, have asked him to my house — 
but to be called myself a Galilean — or bespoke 
him lecturing in the city squares — No — I'll re- 
turn — no — on. If the man has truth, do I not 
want truth?" 

What was it he saw now? The black and 
frowning shape of that old prison, from whose 
Heaven-forced gates angels lead brave Peter out 
some good years later on, and within easy walk 
of which were Christian homes though humble ? 
Was it Mark's mother's door that opened now to 
this old ruler of the Jews; and all the roomful 
round the feet of Jesus took the Speaker's hint 
to rise and greet a "master" come to them? 
Did the saddened great man wave impatient- 
ly aside the deference of the simple family, 
requesting secrecy and silence that the two 
might talk? The obeisant circle, speechless all. 



148 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



The great Kuler in the dignity of years; the 
simple Jesus in brown locks of thirty. The Old 
in the splendid undress of his order half re- 
vealed; the Young in the graceful product of 
the home loom and pilgrim girt. The Old full- 
fed by a lucrative office and a life of luxury: 
the Young in the manly strength of the hill 
country. The Old cold, a Stoic, who had kept 
the law from youth, clean as an ice blink, accus- 
tomed to reverence from all, himself called 
" Master" ; yet abashed now, and heavy-hearted, 
breaking silence with — 

"Master, we know that thou art a teacher 
come from God." 

The Young man, calm and gentle as the Fa- 
therhood of God, " Ye must be born again." 

They who witnessed that scene will never for- 
get it. We who hear of it should not forget or 
mistake its lesson. We must be born again. 

There are some men so grand that they pos- 
sess their prosperity — not their prosperity pos- 
sesses them. It is the man with a gold ring 
on: not the gold ring with a man on. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 149 



The morality of the Gospel rests on higher 
sanctions than that of the Old Testament. 

First. Gratitude to the good God. 

Second. Veneration and love for the Personal 
Teacher and Saviour. 

Third. Our brother -man is purchased with 
the same sacrificial blood. 

Fourth. We are the temples for the indwell- 
ing Spirit of Christ. 

Fifth. We desire to be made meet for the in- 
heritance of the saints in Immortality. 

In mathematics, twice two are four, "and 
that's the end on't " ; but in matters of opinion 
men will admit, for instance, that truth should 
prevail, yet dispute endlessly as to what is 
truth. Sometimes, amid the confusion of de- 
bate over what religion is, what the soul's safety 
is, I turn eagerly to the Bible. But men are 
disputing as to what the Bible means to teach. 
Then, desperately 1 exclaim, "Let me sit at the 
feet of Jesus, taking a plain man's view of what 
He says! On that will I rest." If He were 
walking this street to-day, meeting men as once 



150 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



He met tliem, I would hear Him ; as He met the 
decent man; the stingy man; the outcast; the 
sceptic ; and mark His manner of address. How 
would I delight to sit beside him in a pew, as 
He listened to one of His modern preachers; 
then question Him, "What was truth in the 
preachers words?" I would go with Him to 
Sing Sing, and observe His methods with such 
men. I would say, " Come with me, my Lord, 
talk with my friend a metaphysician. My oth- 
er friends, the moral man and his good wife. I 
can not move them. Oh ! to observe thy man- 
ner with such souls." 

In His recorded career the close student can 
find every modern character met by Christ and 
instructed. In these cures of sick souls is there 
a common base line of operations? If you look 
in at a watch-makers window you find the 
repairer doing a different thing to almost every 
watch. One wants a new mainspring, but oth- 
erwise is in good order; another has no fault 
with the mainspring, but wants new jewels. 
Another lias neither of these faults, but a bro- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



151 



ken crystal. At least we may say there is no 
one fault which in every watch demands repair- 
ing. The souls of men which Christ repaired; 
are they like the watches, each righted in differ- 
ent ways, and only casually presenting the same 
defect ? Is Zaccheus repaired as to avarice, and 
otherwise not touched; Paul as to intense big- 
otry, a very different fault you see ; the outcast 
as to chastity; Nicodemus as to his opinions, 
but otherwise not, and not needing ? Is Christ's 
salvation patchwork ? Or is there in every soul 
which the Eestorer set right, one and the same 
radical fault, treated in reality in the same way, 
though with different outward methods of ap- 
proach? To every man He said, "Kepent." It 
is the common base line of cure. It is as if the 
mainspring was broken in us all. 

Speaking of repentance: — Christ began His 
ministry with that word, preaching it. Think 
what it is to preach "Kepent" to a promis- 
cuous audience. Are there none who need not 
the message ? You are a physician, and before 
you stand three men. You preach a cure to 



152 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



them, feeling no man's pulse, nor taking other 
diagnosis. 

"Diet, gentlemen. Be careful of your food, 
that's the cure." 

"But, doctor," objects the first man, "that 
applies to the next man for he has gout; I, how- 
ever, have a broken leg, and the third man a 
cataract on the eye." 

Multiply the three men by one hundred. It 
is the city hospital. How absurd this curing at 
arm's length, standing at one end of the ward, 
with one word. Not a specific hospital, not if 
all its sufferers had trouble of the eye, could be 
so treated. Yet Christ stood and preached to 
hundreds of sick souls, and sent His ministers 
to do likewise, with one word "Repent." Every 
man needs then to repent, it is the beginning of 
the cure, if the Physician is to be believed. 

"A Scotch mist" is the infidelity of to-day, 
only a Scotch mist. Do you sometimes trem- 
ble ? You must have observed that every win- 
ter we have " the coldest day within the recol- 
lection of the oldest inhabitant." But just as 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 153 



we are concluding that the summer will never 
be possible again, so low has the sun sunk, so 
bitter the cold, so rocky the frozen earth, so 
stout the assertion of the afore-mentioned oldest 
inhabitant consulting her memory and croaking 
over the top of her trembling staff — some sober 
man turns to the records which stand in ink. 
Lo ! Last winter had five colder days ; the win- 
ter before seven, and — but why look farther? 
Present troubles are always the worst. 

The days of Voltaire were very dark. Hume, 
Gibbon, and Rosseau thought to put out the 
sun. He is yet shining. What a dark day was 
that which succeeded the Peace of Westphalia ? 
But God raised up Jacob Spener. 

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Thom- 
as Cooper in early American History thought 
Christianity was moribund. Two years of re- 
vival in 1801 burned out their coarse scepti- 
cism, till the very ashes stank. 

What did Eobert Owen effect? "Hopedale," 
"The Brook Farm," "The New Moral Order," 
" Fourierism," are all gone, but the Son is yet 
triumphant. 

The sceptical element in Phrenology, Spir- 



154: ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



itualism, Hosea Ballou's Universalism, Parker's 
Unitarianism — these have passed, but the Son 
still reigns. 

I have stood in May, and studied the leaf- 
buds. Putting forth somewhat, there has sud- 
denly come a chill in the spring air. I have 
then heard the buds talking with each other, 

"Ah! There will be no summer more. Let's 
shrivel up, freeze, die, and drop off." 

" Nay," respond others. 44 Wait. Cling close 
to the bough from whence is sap and nourish- 
ment. To-morrow is June." 

" Not so think w^e. We shrivel up, we fall." 

And these foolish ones lie all along the ground 
sere and crisp. Man and beast grind them to 
powder, while June breezes scatter them afar. 
The faithful buds are now touched into fulness. 
New buds take the place of the weak departed. 
The forests are green afar with the uncountable 
leaves whose faith failed not. I am so sorry for 
the discouraged . few, who froze in one day, and 
strew the sun-flecked ground. It is not the 
word of a speaker who feels advantaged. Of a 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 155 



truth, in my heart I am pained — and it is nigh 
the only regret over scepticism I feel — for the 
souls that shall be frozen to the death, in one 
passing day of infidelity. For the summer is 
sure, shimmering with advanced rays already 
warming us. To-morrow millions shall be "con- 
verted " in the old, old way. Christ shall reign. 
Eead History. 

Now and then men face the alternative and 
boldly assert, " There is no difference. Every 
man is what circumstances make him." Ask 
one question: Do you act on that belief? For 
if you do, I'll expose you to-morrow; an unfit 
man for a bank president, an unsafe man for a 
clerk. You have no place out of prison walls. 
Who knows what " circumstances " will excuse 
for you even murderous intents to-morrow? 

Have you, a Christian, two sources of hap- 
piness, God and The World? Then you are 
wrong, for to you God ought to be in all the 
world that you appropriate, and all the world 



156 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



God's. Do you use the adjectives " spiritual " 
and " secular" in describing your enjoyments? 
Is prayer spiritual, that is the Great Spirit's 
gift, while an evening in a picture-gallery is 
secular, that is man's gift? Why, God gives 
the latter as truly as the former. If you are 
living on the high plane of your privilege, you 
see God in all things that you are permitted to 
build into your life. Have you spiritual needs, 
as for instance help in resisting temptation, 
and secular needs, such as help in sickness? 
There is only One Helper everywhere. You 
watch against temptation — and pray; you call 
the physician in sickness — and ought also to 
pray. Are you able to manage the mortgage 
alone, but unable, as you think, to save your 
soul ? In fact you, without God, are as power- 
less in the one case as the other; you can not 
cross your office threshold without Him, nor 
sign a draft. There are not two worlds here 
below to the Christian, one God's realm and 
the other man's. He is all in all. Colloquially 
it is harmless, but in the secret heart it is 
wicked to distinguish to one's self between 
spiritual and temporal possessions. Your faith 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 157 

and love are God's, and so your house, your 
gold. Men say business is business and relig- 
ion is religion. No. Business is religion and 
religion is business. 

How childish we are ! How difficult is it to 
condemn self, even in the smallest thing. Thou- 
sands of the people this w^eek poured through the 
museum, and looked into the glazed cases and 
counters. Saturday afternoon five people stood 
over one particular case, when — crash ! went the 
glass. Instantly every one of the five was erect 
with, "It was not I," "Nor I," "Nor I." Did she, 
whose heavily jewelled arms craunched upon 
the articles de vertu, under whose pressure the 
shivering really was, — did she, worth a fortune 
of a million, pause at the office and offer to pay 
one little dollar? Not so; but going out with 
the crowd she spends costly hours to dissuade 
her accusing conscience. She is much obliged 
to any member of the family who suggests, 

" It was the way the attendant had closed the 
case." 

"Yes. That was it." 



158 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



" It was the crowd of weeks who had cracked 
it." 

"Yes, yes. That was it." 

And yet, absenting herself a year, as she re- 
visits the museum she mentally asks, 

" I wonder if they know that I am the person 
who — did not break that glass?" 

Is the illustration cheap ? I'm glad you think 
so, for then it fits the sin it depicts ; the cheap, 
small, childish sin which everywhere, and in 
greater things the same, prevents the brave 
words — 

"It is my own fault." 

There never was a human biography writ- 
ten, that did not lie like — well like a human 
photograph. 

As I speak of this "newness of life," I am not 
unmindful of your mental questionings — " Do 
facts, observed in the lives of church-members, 
bear you out? Are all who are in the visible 
church — " Hold ; we, their fellow-men, admit 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 159 



men into the visible church. Can we infalli- 
bly ascertain who is truly "born again"? Not 
so. The facts do bear me out that whosoever is 
truly born of the Spirit, whoso is of the invisible 
Church of Christ, is a new creature, let whoso- 
ever watch and criticise him. Moreover; if I 
mistake not, I have seen not a few lives, glow- 
ing with a beauty, not self- wrought, but Spirit- 
wrought, whom timidity or stones of minor 
doctrinal stumbling have kept from presenting 
themselves to the church on earth. I say here, 
to-night, you belong to us. We are expecting 
you. You are of Christ. Come now. 

Your old college chum recently spent the 
night with you ; saw your residence, your wife, 
and your children, who showed off in the usual 
way of children before company. Next day at 
home, he narrated, " A good fellow is Tom; suc- 
cessful; plain wife, most uninteresting children, 
not at all like—" and with that he gathers up 
the thin form of his own, always sickly, but his 
own, whose thigh is not as thick as the thumb 
of your own stalwart roisterer. But with the 



160 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



lamp of love that father has gone searching 
through and through the little disadvantaged 
life of his pet, valuing every possibility, and 
seeing great things. Thank God! Every day 
some one says, " Pastor, there is that boy of 
mine. If he is only pointed right, he has great 
things before him." True. Only, if we would 
be Christ-like we shall see the same in every 
boy. A wonderful discerner is the lamp of 
Christian love. 

Every little while we make the worn-out 
toys and picture books of the nursery seem 
new. We hide them for awhile; then repro- 
ducing them, they are invested with twofold in- 
terest — memory and possession. Does not God 
sometimes so deal with the blessings we have 
come to lightly value from their very common- 
ness ? Ask Him for the old blessing to-day, if 
you are now, bitterly taught, able to appreciate 
it. Perhaps it is time to give it you again. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



161 



I saw yesterday the new "harp attachment" 
upon a music box. Down upon the steel comb 
was pressed a long bar of like metal. And the 
command was given to the poor thing, "Now 
be a harp." The unwilling teeth choked and 
strangled and half-swallowed their natural tones 
in a possible effort at imitation ; but so soon as 
the bar of constraint was lifted, nature had her 
own again in a jingling, rollicking run from 
Robert le Diable. " Ha ! ha ! I am not a harp ! " 
Many men are trying to utter the harp-tones of 
the Christian character by pressing an iron reso- 
lution upon the faculties of the natural heart. 
The New Testament is the score. But to love 
God with all the heart, and one's neighbor as 
one's self, to prefer first the kingdom of God 
and his righteousness, all those lofty, spiritual 
duties and activities of Paul's or Peter's or 
Christ's commands, — these are out of reach. 
Lift off the will, and nature has her own way 
again. You get harp-music from harp-strings. 
The changed nature is a miracle. 



162 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



There are two blessings which I, a young 
man, crave at the hands of Age. That I may 
respect the elderly life; — it is by nature my 
teacher, both in example and precept. That I 
may love the elderly man, because he is lovable. 
What purity of affection is there in the tribute 
of trusting youth to lovely old age ! It is so 
free from admixture of passion; not gross, but 
spiritual. It is possible too, when Age is not 
simply one sixty-years growth of will-power, 
nor but an aggregation of strong doctrinal con- 
victions; not a saddened ripening of one text, 
"Vanity of vanities! all is vanity!" nor a pa- 
thetic ruin of the mind's cheer under ruin of 
wealth or fortunes; not simply a soured deter- 
mination to "hold out to the end to get the 
crown." Bather we can love Age when it 
beams with Christian joy. I see him who has 
drunk so deep at the Fount of Life that stalwart 
sons come unto him for cheer, and generously 
strive who shall possess him most ; whose grown 
daughters toy with his white locks, after the 
trembling utterance of the evening prayer, and 
fear the time when from their dwelling such 
sunlight shall fade. I see him with enwrapped 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



163 



infancy, telling Joseph-stories, till baby voices 
cry again, " More, grandpapa ! more." I see 
youth salute him as he passes in the streets. 
I see, at the wedding, the bride stoop to kiss 
him last, as she departs, with a whispered re- 
quest for his holy prayers. I see him in pain 
testifying that grace is sufficient for him; in 
prayer-meetings heralding forth "the way grows 
brighter and brighter." I see him at last, cold 
and white before the altars of God's house, and 
the hymn sung seems so truthful that it follows 
men out into the toilsome world, a sweet echo, 
"Lived rejoicing every day — every day, rejoic- 
ing every day." 

Thank God for such men. The fruit of the 
Spirit is joy. 

Have you ever yet come to ask yourself that 
question of mystery, What is my soul? If 
not, you will. Oh, mystery ! What is this 
being which I, plain John Blank, am? Is it 
my hand? No, cut it off and I, with power 
to think, to love, to hate, still am. Pluck out 
the eye, and I am still sitting behind the dark- 



I 



164 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



ened window, thinking of the sunlight once 
seen. " Vital spark," "heavenly flame," per- 
sonality, disposition, character, mind or sonl? 
These are verbal guesses at an unreachable re- 
ality. This is what must be changed, if I am 
to be changed. Will water touch it? No. 
Will knee-bendings, or confirmation robes of 
white, or hands of fellowship? No. Will new 
ideas? Man may adopt the clearest ideas of 
right and wrong while yet a villain. Will out- 
ward morality touch this inner something ? Not 
necessarily ; for one may be a hypocrite. What 
will touch and change the spirit of a man? 
Only the Spirit who first created can recreate 
a spirit which has, somewhere, lost its pristine 
spirituality. 

God takes no pleasure in our sadness, unless 
it is over our own or another's sins, or in sym- 
pathy with another's sorrow. Sadness of itself 
is not meritorious, but should be repented of, 
seeking forgiveness for it. "The will of God in 
Christ concerning you" is "Kejoice evermore." 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



165 



The world quarrels with the Scripture de- 
mand that we "put on the new man." But 
every one has had the desire to make some 
friend of his "over new." We like the fellow 
if — but there are so many ifs that at last we 
exclaim, "with the exception of his generosity 
there is scarce a part of him which does not 
need taking apart and making over, new." 
Well, I can understand that God must so con- 
clude about the best of us, from His stand-point. 

In those days that went before our conver- 
sion we felt conscious we had a green spot or 
two in our nature; here and there a fountain 
in the arid waste. One said, "My character is 
not, to be sure, what I wish it was, but I am 
a generous soul." And, like a frugal gardener, 
he dipped his watering-pot into that one spring, 
going forth to spray its poor drops upon the 
rest of his soul lands, trying to make dearth 
spots green. Another dipped into his honesty; 
another into his intellectual pre-eminence. At 
length there came a kindly wind from God's 
Spirit over the plains of character. Heaven 



166 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



opened itself with life from above. Gentle, 
life-giving rains ! Divine influences "upon the 
human soul. With some, indeed, with thunder 
and lightning and rendings, as with Paul; but 
with others it was as the more ample dew, 
softly falling, through days and months may- 
be. It was a heavenly quickening. We threw 
away our water-pots and lay like outstretched 
fields in sunshine and in rain. Every good seed 
began to take root. Love to God, to man, faith, 
hope, spiritual desires, and fair flowers of good 
deeds, planted and nourished by Divine Power, 
began to put forth and blossom. Thus has come 
spring-time to the soul. The wheat is not yet 
ready for the garner, nor the apple ripened; 
but we are, I trust, growing up into Christ, 
as into a genial air. Eternity is the summer. 
There shall be no shortening autumn. The 
vintage is His, for He gave the increase. 

Upon the young the effect of bad company 
is like the lightning's stroke. Flash! And he 
is dead, or his eyes are opened. Upon maturer 
life it is an atmosphere of smoke and fog, like 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 167 



that which moves across the face of London 
marbles day after day, charged with sulphur- 
ous gases from chimney stacks and retorts of 
manufactories. It bleaches out the red flush 
of innocence, tarnishes the blue of faith, and 
the green of sweet memories. The sneer of 
your best friend at your faith, only a little 
sneer, day by day. It rises like bad air, gnaw- 
ing at your bronzed ideals. I complain in your 
behalf, Sir Forty-years-old, of your delightful 
neighbor. He is indeed of high and generous 
instincts, chivalrous, with ready tears in your 
time of sorrow. But these are like jewels on 
the steel that stabs. He is the stronger nature 
of the two. His polished unbelief, breathed out 
here and there, under the veranda in June twi- 
lights, on Sabbath strolls, around the winter s 
fire, is blighting you. You are not believing 
as you once did. He is not good for you. Your 
pious wife will say the same ; your best friends 
see it. Your conscience pronounces, It is true. 

Not a defaulter, not one of the many who of 
late have proved false in fiduciary stations, but 



168 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



within his heart there rose up, at the first, the 
question, "Is not this wrong?" It was the up- 
springing of conscience, reaching out after a 
support. The conception of a Holy God would 
have been a great Yes, into which that upreach- 
ing conscience could have fastened itself, and 
then held the whole man. But it is only too 
evident that, in every case of falling, an infe- 
rior idea of God's holiness was being cherished. 
God is merciful, knowing that we are all poor 
sinners; good-natured, caring most of all to 
make us comfortable, and not much for moral 
character. He will remember that I must have 
a living, and that I perpetrate this irregularity 
from love of my little children. Then came 
ruin. I have seen a wild vine of the woods 
which had climbed by some old tree. Half way 
up, the trunk has just been snapped by the 
gale. Yet for hours thereafter the vine con- 
tinues to reach upward its head and tender 
arms unto the unsupporting air, swaying tan- 
talizingly, grasping, feeling for a prop. By the 
third day it has bent, disheartened, to twine 
round itself, and even to grow downward. 
As you value your soul, be affrighted when 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 169 



your conscience must reach downward to find 
its God. Instead of being a little below your 
best, the true God is always a little above, and 
yet above, and above; even if you become as 
the archangels — above. 

A true Christian always vindicates God and 
condemns self. He is on a sick-bed and his 
weary prayers seem to lie unanswered at the 
footstool of Christ. He can not understand why 
he is thus afflicted. He almost speaks it out, 
" There has been some mistake. God is not 
what I — " Then, shocked at his thought, he 
gathers up strength to do a deed of mind more 
worshipful than all hymns, sermons or stately 
pageantry of cathedral services, "Let God be 
true, though every man a liar ! He is not false. 
It is II I ! or my fellow-man, or we twain. 
Let it be any thing else, rather than that I 
should condemn God." This is not saying that 
we always know just wherein to condemn self. 
The principle of a true piety, however is, un- 
doubtedly, always to exculpate God and incul- 
pate self. 



170 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



That is bad company which helps a man to 
do wrong, helps him down. Is it not a hid- 
eous office when yon contrast it with the 
work of a benefactor? The latter is one who 
helps men up, up from ignorance, up from 
want, up from vice and sorrow. Think of the 
man who helps — helps is the word — a fellow- 
man down! 

It is done every day. Over here (Brooklyn) 
is the errand boy's home, and nightly the wid- 
owed mother helps him upward ; does it on her 
knees beneath the pictured face of the dead, 
upon the wall. Over there (Xew York) sit the 
gray old rats in the idle back office, retailing 
lecherous stories to bring a boyish blush. They 
are helping down. It were better for such, who 
offend one of these little ones, had they never 
been born. 

Over here is the clerk's home, and you have 
him one little Sunday-school hour. Over there, 
in the bank, at the same row of desks are two 
waxed demons. Those two fellows know every 
sin, save theft, in the calendar. They badger 
our clerk. They narrate, Monday mornings, the 
evil deeds of the Sabbath. They laughingly 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 171 

show their white fangs, dripping with the car- 
rion of yesterday. They help a man to do 
wrong. They undo what you do over here. 
They are whited sepulchres full of dead men's 
bones. They are of a generation of vipers. 
How can they escape the damnation of hell? 
* At the school is one whose touch is pollution. 
At the college one whose palm sheds a scab as 
you grasp it: he teaches scepticism. At the 
boarding-house is one who corrupts : he despises 
the churches and teaches men so; he dishon- 
ors the Sabbath; he champions the guilty; his 
habits are bad. Do not eat with him, says 
Paul. 

"Help! you passer-by! I have found a little 
bird that can scarcely fly. Hi ! There he goes ! 
Help, can not you climb the tree ? " 

"But, my friend, I think the birdling will 
take care of himself. He needs no help." 

"Nay. You do not understand. Help to 
catch him, to drag him down. See, he weak- 
ens, he pants. We will break his legs, and 
then? Then we will" — with smacking lips — 
" break his wings ! tender wings ! pretty wings, 
easy to twist! Break them once and twice. 



172 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



And we will gloat upon him. Then we'll see 
him struggle from the dogs." 

Is there no hell ? Let it be your child whose 
legs are broken, the wings of whose spirit are 
thus broken. What monsters there are in this 
world. To think that my little children must 
go out of the nest to-morrow! 

To receive and love good men, for their good- 
ness' sake; to ponder the narrative of noble 
deeds — this is one of the most efficient means 
of soul-culture, and exalted enjoyment. If you 
are in earnest with your soul-building, you will 
entertain Abraham, the friend of God; Moses, 
the great leader ; Boaz, the pure man, and Euth, 
the virtuous girl; Hannah, the pattern mother, 
and Samuel, her consecrated son; Daniel, the 
Puritan, and Elijah of heroic mould. — Of course 
you invite to your inner hours of meditation 
John, Paul, and the whole apostolic group. If 
you find in history any deed nobly done, done 
to stir the blood and fire the hearts of witnesses ; 
if in the life of Grecian patriot or sage, or Ko- 
man soldier, from Thermopylae to the senate 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 173 



when Eegulus confronted it, you will whip out 
your pencil and mark the page. As you turn 
the leaves of modem history, if anywhere you 
find an action related to kindle the loftier emo- 
tions of the soul, like the acquittal of the En- 
glish bishops, or sung by poets, like Bonivard 
at Chillon, you will turn down the leaf; you 
will read it to your children often. When you 
come from the hard and selfish marts of trade, 
digusted with your kind, you will revert to 
these golden deeds, and thus save your ideals. 
We think, too often, that life is new, and our 
own peculiar temptation was never met by man 
before. Not so. Life is old. Are you selfish, 
earth-loving, doubt-filled ? Look to your books 
and about you. Ten thousand men and women 
have met your identical trial. Study them; 
find out how they steered the ship and tri- 
umphed over the tempest. Cut from the news- 
paper every slip which tells of a grand action 
grandly achieved in this most prosaic decade. 
Put it among your treasures. Every soul ought 
to have its own Westminster Abbey, into which, 
as years pass, the great good are admitted, with 
statue and tablet ; into which is no easy admit- 



174 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



tance; no, multitudes live and die around you, 
but only here and there one unto whom you 
issue the mandate, Let that one be borne in. 
Not Moses alone; but your young friend who 
abandoned college, midway, to lift up the beg- 
gared home his departed father left. You are 
not to worship within your sacred Avails, for 
there are but men about you. But you are to 
sit there, dreaming, rested, thankful, inspired. 

I am continually saddened by the sight of so 
many children of the rich, especially sons, with 
whom life is inane, and aimless. In many cases 
the result is early dissipation. Any thing to 
add zest to life. I see others however, who, like 
Nathaniel, are dreaming under their fig-tree, too 
high-minded to be dissolute, yet filled with a 
nameless dissatisfaction with self. From a lad 
one has never been obliged to work, in the 
proper and natural meaning of that term, and 
by eighteen has already travelled in all lands. 
Life is old before it has fairly begun. Eeared 
in the best circles of a great city, he has had 
the eritre to such pleasurable rounds as have 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 175 



now quite lost tlieir savor to him. Then col- 
lege, because — well he loves learning; I have 
said he was pure-minded — but not a little be- 
cause college will fill the time to twenty-five. 
Then life. Some are entering politics — only to 
tire of the career. Some revisit Europe, and at 
Paris enter society, at Vienna study music, at 
Eome gaze emptily upon the grand spectacles, 
at London society again; but all is done aim- 
lessly. Some go into business, the place an af- 
fectionate father has prepared, and at first with 
some energy; but the healthful stimulus of ne- 
cessity is lacking, and it is a mimicry of use- 
fulness. They are conscious the business was 
done without them, would be done without 
them, is done without them. Perhaps, now, 
marriage for a time supplies its own noble and 
generous excitement; but even domestic love is 
robbed of its loftiest joy — the consciousness of 
strength supporting lovely weakness with its 
own faithful arm ; for he inherits wealth, and so 
does she. 

What shall he do ? The aimless life of a 
rich man's son, who is not a profligate. He is 
a field of ripening wheat, waiting for a reaper ; 



176 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



but day after day prosperity's sunbeams over- 
head, those blazing, ripening sunbeams. What 
wonder if a spark from evil to-morrow inflames 
him all? 

Nathaniel, my brother. I present you man. 
Have you ever thought of the swarming world, 
in its sin and sorrow ? Jesus said to your proto- 
type, " Go feed the poor. Come, follow me." 
He proposed to make us fishers of men; to send 
us into all the world preaching to every creat- 
ure. Have you read this week of 

too soon passed into the heavens, with vast 
wealth going forth to bind the wounds of our 
late war, employing one day each week in 
visiting and praying with the poverty of New 
York, instant in every season of charity ? I do 
not speak to dullards. You are of fine grain. 
Does not such a life-object fill your dilating eye? 
Think on man. Think on the hours all your 
own. Think on your educated mind. Think 
on your means. You should be a philanthro- 
pist. It is not the ministry of the pulpit I de- 
pict to you. First give your own soul to Christ, 
and then let Him give you to man. There is in 
such a life always something to do for Jesus, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



177 



always something to suffer for Jesus, always 
something to enjoy from Jesus, always some 
new beauty to see in Jesus. 

The mind thoroughly convinced that God has 
done a wrong can not stop short of insanity. 
In childhood it transpired at times that parent- 
al authority had made a mistake, was wrong. 
Childhood stood astonished at the frank avowal, 
"My boys, I was wrong." At first the sensation 
was flattering to young vanity ; and smiles and 
simperings marked our victorious exit, unpun- 
ished. But after all the sober moments came 
apace. It was wholly an unpleasant experi- 
ence. It was a sort of shock, as if the north 
star had gone out. Father's wrong ! It was as 
if a guide in the woods had halted to say, " I 
have lost the way." We would rather it had 
been, our father infallible. "What would it be, 
after the first puerile flush of self- vindication, to 
know in this world of contradictions of fortune, 
of pains and joys so strangely meted out, man 
is right for once and the Euler wrong! We 
should even then creep back to Him, shivering, 



178 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



cowering with the animal instinct that must 
have a Master. But what a horror of apprehen- 
sion would forever haunt us, serving the fallible. 

Will you, seriously, assert your burdens of 
domestic life to be the Christian cross Christ 
commands us to take up? However beautiful 
natural affection, do not the inferior animals 
share it with you ? Besides : — will you, return- 
ing from to-morrow's toil soberly apostrophize 
your dwelling, " Oh ! Home ! Thou art my 
cross, all the self-crucifixion I need. The cradle 
a little cross; the boy's schooling, the beloved 
sick-bed of my vigils, the arm-chair of my old 
mother, a continual crucial burden ! " Not so. 
You are not such stuff as that. There may be 
hours of fatigue and petulance ; but, take all in 
all, these things are indulgences to such a self as 
yours. To you commercial integrity is no cross. 
You would scorn to be portrayed after this fash- 
ion, " Know all men. You think him the soul 
of honor; but within are chained tigers of dis- 
honor and fraud." You luxuriate in temper- 
ance, in chastity. At least seven out of the 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 179 



eleven commandments are to you delights. In 
them is no self-denial. 

As you review your life — its burdens, which 
have been joys ; self-restraints, which have been 
the happiness of self-respect; sorrows, which, 
however submissively borne, have lacked vol- 
untariness since you did not offer self — has there 
yet been downright, purposed self-denial, wor- 
thy to be called taking up Christ's cross ? Your 
heart is a steeple-ball on which these things have 
been like pattering raindrops. Oh! for some 
stroke which shall make your whole nature vi- 
brate with a solemn note "To prayer." 

Try to submit your will to God. Or try to 
put your love of business prosperity under your 
feet. Do not wrestle with the playthings of 
boys, such as "Thou shalt not steal." Take 
this, " If any man love the world, the love of 
the Father is not in him." Oh! Thou white 
Atlas, there is thy cross — the world. Eoll that 
away from the heart's door, if thou canst. It 
is in bending to that, thou provest to thyself, 
to God, and to the rest of us, that thou too art a 
poor sinner. God charges upon the rich young 
man who had "kept all the commandments from 



180 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



youth up," "Thou wouldst rather be a rich man 
than to be a good man : — all of a good man con- 
ceived of by thyself and commanded by Me." 

It was doubtless when standing in full view 
of the niched rock cut by Greeks for the idol 
Pan, face to face with the lustrous marble tem- 
ple to "divine Augustus" of the Eomans at 
Cassarea Philippi, that Christ said, " What shall 
a man give in exchange for his soul ? " To Him 
belonged this costly adoration, squandered at 
the feet of idols; and He is a jealous God. 
There before His very eyes were the tokens 
of a false love. J ealousy in the purest woman's 
heart, at sight of love -tokens bestowed upon 
another which were rightfully her own, is a 
severe, a biting thing, killing the one, or the 
two, or the three. Observe how poor and inad- 
equate a thing is our English word jealousy, 
with which to portray the Divine emotion. 
Our blessed Lord laments over the value of a 
soul whose devotion is snatched from Himself; 
loves it all the more; condemns it with the un- 
speakable condemnation of wounded love ; asks, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO ? 181 



" Once lost, what shall man give in exchange, 
to get it back again?" His "jealousy" drives 
Him to the cross, that He may win His own 
again — the love of a priceless human soul. Let 
human jealousy learn a lesson. Lift yourself 
up on a cross, that you may draw unto your- 
self the heart you think you have lost. 

"It is the nineteenth century." How few 
know how to weigh those words. It is elec- 
tion day; and I watch two men approaching 
the ballot-box. Each carrying a little vote, 
only a little vote. One is a boor, whose only 
fitness is that he was born more than one and 
twenty years ago, on this soil, and that he is 
human and not equine. How light a thing to 
him is that little vote, which he would barter 
for a cart whip with a brass ferule. The man 
behind him is also of the poor, with coat-sleeves 
polished to a greasy sheen, edge-ravelled; with 
thin and yellow face; with straggling locks of 
gray. He is no taxpayer, and no man regards 
him. But that man is a garret philosopher, 
who has pondered the struggles of constitu- 



182 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



tional history; who knows that the franchise 
is the costliest blessing of the civic world. His 
vote is red-colored, picked out of the hoof-prints 
and cannon-ruts of a world-wide battle-field, 
where millions of men died in its behalf. He 
could kiss it, and casts it with a prayer. It is 
not for us all to be well-read philosophers ; but it 
is possible for us all to catch some inkling of the 
tremendous expense lavished to pave a way for 
this nineteenth century. Would to Heaven we 
were served in high office by men who at least 
have read the past, even though they can not 
plan the future ! 

What is my temporal, earthly life ? It is get- 
ting from bed of a morning say fifteen thou- 
sand times, going to the store, measuring a yard 
and a yard till noon: it is to eat again, and 
again measure yards till night. It is to greet 
the home, to study the inanities of the evening 
paper, which, if dates were changed, might be 
shuffled like cards and "the news" fit as well 
one year as another. It is again to rise in 
the morning. Quite like a machine, the wheel 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 183 



goes round, and the wheel goes round. Has 
God put this earth under me simply that I 
might stand and measure three feet for the 
yard? Has He turned and overturned all his- 
toric Providence that I might sell my yard 
and be able to collect the debt ? Has God 
come in the flesh that I might be taught to 
give thirty-six inches for a yard instead of 
thirty-five — to teach morality only? Was the 
cross erected solely that I might be forgiven 
if once I gave thirty-five inches for thirty-six? 
These things indeed are not to be despised. 
Eeligion makes good citizens, merchants, par- 
ents, and children. Every earthly relation is 
exalted. But as one views Creation, Provi- 
dence, Bethlehem, and Calvary, who does not 
catch a hint of something God can see in Eter- 
nity, which belongs to us because we are hu- 
man souls? The Brazilian Indian pours a hand- 
ful of rough diamonds into the pouch of the first 
white man who has ever asked for the pebbles. 
But even the Indian soon learns to value what 
he sees so eagerly sought by pilgrims from 
afar, though he can not imagine a Westmin- 
ster Abbey coronation and its diamond crown. 



184 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



As I look at my life, bounded by cradle and 
grave, it is not worth all this seeking on the 
part of Deity. There must be something else 
of me. I begin to wonder what it may be to 
be an immortal. I value my own soul. "It 
doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we 
know" there is something beyond. 

The word Christ means The Anointed, the 
Anointed king. Who is without his Anointed, 
his Ideal, his Soul-monarch, or Thought-king? 
It is pitiful, some of these inward coronations. 
The grocers boy with the basket on his arm, 
out of the dime novel; the lounger, from the 
boards of the theatre; the brakeman, from the 
central offices, get each their Anointed before 
whose mental image they exclaim, "Ah! To 
be such a man as he ! " West Point anoints 
the great captain of the century, the lean lad 
from Corsica. Dreaming youth in college halls 
pour out on Webster, Longfellow, or some strong 
one in the illustrious present, the precious oil of 
boyhoods fervor, and get them each a king. 
Ofttimes these manifestations are very beau- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 185 

! 

tiful. To many a man his noble wife is the 
hallowed head anointed. She says, "For my 
sake now, work on. I know work is hard and 
unrequiting; but, for me." And he replies, 
" Yes; for her sake, for her sake!" I tell yon 
the coronation which some men give a good 
woman, with the photograph studied long, this 
day, in foreign ports and strange lands — "For 
her sake ! " — is something awful, awful in its 
beauty and awful in its danger, lest the auburn 
head or crowned with wavy gray, should take 
the place of the Head crowned with thorns. 

Well: — Into this throne of the soul Jesus 
steps, within the Christian's breast. He seats 
Himself lovingly, saying, "I am the Anointed. 
I am the permitted Christ, the true king." Is 
He yours? 

"The trial of your faith is precious." Have 
you never crossed your neighbor's threshold, 
called at midnight because the babe had died ? 
Your neighbors, amiable folk, never go to church. 
The frenzied mother meets you, scarce within the 
door, with a wild, despairing look, and casts her- 



186 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



self, moaning, upon you with the cry, "Oh! my 
friend! You profess to be a Christian. Do you 
believe? Do you?" You, drawn upon at every 
pore of sympathy, yet gathering strength, joy- 
fully respond, "Yes. I believe, believe with 
all my heart. It is well with the child." And 
so did you stretch your faith out like a bridge 
for these stumbling feet to walk upon. Ah, 
there have been hours in my life when I have 
felt like speaking ex cathedra. " Believe ! Be- 
lieve because — well because I believe. I can 
see, if you can not, the Unseen. I see heav- 
ens opening up beyond heavens, stars trembling 
beyond stars, see the blessed dead safe in Christ, 
and a rest that remaineth." As the wife and 
children of the fisherman flock about the coast- 
guardsman and cling to him, whose practiced 
eye can pierce to the dividing of mists upon 
a stormy ocean whence the loved one delays 
his coming, so round you of tried faith in 
hours of sorrow cluster and cling the neigh- 
bors whose eyes are not yet opened. There is 
no such preaching of faith from books or pul- 
pits. There is a contagion of faith. In times 
of financial depression like these, many eyes 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 187 



are directed towards professed believers. The 
thought is, "Now is the trial of these Chris- 
tians' faith ; let's see if their minds are fortified 
as ours are not; if they feel themselves under 
Providential protection, as we can not; if, in 
the shock of contest, which may any instant 
carry down the strongest, they are calm where 
others are consumed with fear." 

My friend said, " Look at me ! Thirty-five 
years old and walking with a crutch from boy- 
hood; coughing, to rend my body in twain; no 
comfort to my kindred, no comfort to myself. 
I am in bondage of pain. And the worst of it 
all is I am not to blame; I inherited this imbecility 
from my sickly parents. God ? There can not 
be one. It is blind Fate. It would have been 
better if I had not been born." 

Not so. At your birth a human soul, as well 
as the sickly body, came into existence. Look, 
my brother man. I open a gilded box; from 
perfumed velvet, white, and down, I take a dia- 
mond set in gold — and present it to the king. 
He knocks away its setting of gold, inserting 



188 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



the jewel in his crown. Look again. A miner 
approaches the footstool of the throne, plunges 
his swart hand into his coarse robes, drags up 
a greasy rag, unfolds it, extracting now in his 
turn a diamond, and presents it to the king. 
The monarch accepting the jewel, puts it into 
his crown. Say thou, do the two brilliants re- 
veal to any eye, which one came from the per- 
fumed velvet case, and which from the soiled 
tatters ? When we have shuffled off this mortal 
coil the soul shall be all in all. To have given 
it into the hand of the King by faith will be 
enough, and of the bent body or the stalwart it 
shall bear no signs. 

I say it because I have seen the truth verified 
in the lives of very young converts, and older 
who were not previously familiar with system- 
atic religious thought ; — thousands of the sweet- 
est Christian lives on earth never had a system 
of theology till after regeneration, when they 
began the study of their own past and present 
mental states, by the light of the Scriptures. 
The new birth to them was on this wise. " Oh, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



189 



thou Strong One and Pure, we are unhappy. 
It is because we have been going wrong. Oh ! 
our suffering hearts ! We stand before the 
Healer. The upward gazing seems to bring 
strange comminglings of tumult and peace. 
We will stand here gazing — nay, cast our- 
selves into His arms as a little child. Let Him 
take us and do for us all those mysterious offices 
which we know not, — all that a God would do." 

They rise up, as from a new birth. Many a 
wise man looks back upon his conversion hour, 
impressed as much with the mystery of the spir- 
itual as of the physical birth. "I can not tell; 
I only know whereas I was once blind, now I 
see. It was the power of one Jesus." 

God never made a man and forgot to put a 
conscience into him. But many a man has for- 
gotten the conscience God put into him. 

Make an isothermal map of the three years of 
Christ's ministry. Color the districts of great- 
est healings red, the warm hue of summer. 



190 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 

Then the second year and Galilee are red, red- 
Yet it was then and there He was preaching 
"Repent." As He called men to repent, He 
healed their diseases. He thus convinced them 
that He was no mere critic of manners ; but that 
He spake in love, and stood forth in power cor- 
responding. He reached the soul through the 
poor body. 

What is it to repent? First, Stop — stop do- 
ing wrong. Second, Turn round and look back. 
This is the literal meaning of the word, " a look 
behind," an " after view." Hence arises the 
pain, the emotional part of repentance, result- 
ant on this backward look at errors and sins. 
Third, Go back — to the very spot where we are 
now conscious we began to wander from God, 
or to entertain false views of His rule over 
our destinies. Put it all in one word. "I re- 
pent" equals "I change my mind." The cry 
for forgiveness than becomes easy, natural, 
necessary. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 191 

What is it the Almighty seeks? My body? 
He can do what He will with that now. My 
fortunes? They are all in His hands. My soul? 
It is wholly in His power. No : He seeks from 
me virtue. But virtue is not to be had of me 
unless I possess it, and I can not possess it 
save as the result of my choosing to do the 
ought, instead of the ought not. Hence He re- 
veals to me what I ought and ought not, and 
pleads with me to choose. Not proof-texts, 
but the whole Bible — the fact of a revelation 
at all, submitted to our reasoning faculties — 
declares the prerogative of moral freedom thus 
far. 



God's To-Morrow is as free as if He never 
had a Yesterday. It is not so with man. Guilt 
is a fetter; it entangles us. No man that lives 
but has found himself hamstrung to-day by 
something he did yesterday. He may think 
that deed is covered, past, gone into nonentity: 
but it is not. Its effects are in his mental hab- 
it; in the memories of other people; in the life 
of the injured party met, maybe, face to face 



192 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



on the street to-day first for years. God is the 
being who never did wrong. Not ten years 
ago? Not ten thousand years ago. Millions 
of people have passed through His hands. 
He has had sole charge of their affairs. He 
never injured one. So I say it again, God's 
To-Morrow is free. Yonrs is not. 

The world seems to think the Church war- 
rants men good, from communion to commun- 
ion. We do not. All that the Church says of 
its members is, "So far as we can detect, this 
man is living a life of Christian endeavor." 
We do not pronounce on the ultimate fact, 
which is between the soul and God. We do 
not wish bankers, merchants, insurers, in an 
indolent way or too careless to search for them- 
selves, to take any man of this church for high 
trust because he came to the last Lord's .Sup- 
per. Look up your man. His trustworthiness 
is a matter on which the Church may be de- 
ceived, as well as you. The demand of this 
church, laid on every soul is " As to the Lord, 
and not unto men." It is only to a very lim- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 193 

ited extent that any church officers can go be- 
hind that, in endorsing character. 

Paul, Silas, Luke, and Timothy are on their 
way from Lyclia's house, the centre of a little 
group mostly women, seeking the grassy banks 
of the Gaggitas, under the Thracian oaks, for 
prayer. It is the Sabbath. They leave the 
great, turbulent city of Philippi behind. Out- 
side the gates this slave girl again. This time 
they stop and look at her. She is probably in- 
sane, since no mind could keep its balance and 
endure what she does. She is a priestess of 
Python. A strange beauty is in her wild, dark 
eyes, a voluptuous fascination in her motion, 
her dress and want of dress, the colors, the ank- 
lets and armlets of tinkling silver, the disks of 
gold as waistbands and necklace, the corslet as 
of a mimic warrior fair. She belongs to Del- 
phi, down in Greece. She is a ventriloquist; 
and as she practices that trick men grow hushed 
in wonder. She lifts high in her twirling fin- 
gers a divining rod, and as she whirls in a rhyth- 
mic dance both charming and hateful, lets her 



194 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



baton decline its silver or its ribboned end to 
answer questions, or cries out in meaningless 
" Breck-e-k-kex, coax, coax ! " A crowd attends 
lier, and, while she performs, the ready and 
hard hand of some agent, for them who bought 
her, own her, and imported her, glides through 
the crowd for pay. Her speech has a new 
burden just now. " These men," meaning Paul 
and his, " are the bondsmen of the Most High 
God. I am bondswoman to a different master. 
They show the way of salvation," with her 
laugh, cold and ringing to make one shudder. 
Paul will endure it no more. "I command in 
Christ's name this bewitching to leave her ! " 

Behold ! Instantly, the deftly-thumbed wand 
drops from her high-lifted fingers to the ground. 
The lithe, poised body, sinks from the sustain- 
ing toe-tips to rest upon the soles of the feet. 
Her arms fall, nay, are clasping prayerfully be- 
fore her, and that wildly heaving breast grows 
strangely calm. Her knees bend upon the tap- 
estry spread for her dance, and into her dark, 
burning eyes there is coming, yes, coming, 
what was not since childhood, the cooling, 
cleansing dews of a woman's tears. She has 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



195 



ceased to be a fiend, and has become a woman 
now. 

" Come over into Macedonia and help" Who 
is here who needs help ? Young man, is the 
pool-box " making gain " of you ? Be free ! 
Poor mechanic, is your master, the corner grog- 
gery, " making much gain ? " Be free ! 

It is not the young convert, glowing with his 
first love, with whose morals the Church has 
trouble. I have seen men converted and knock- 
ing for admission into the Church who were of 
late grievously profane swearers, suspected of 
habitual dishonesty in business with the custom- 
house and tax collector, living unhappily with 
kindred. My first thought was, "There is work 
for deacons, and for a pastor, to instruct in the 
moral law." But we were surprised to learn that 
instantly and constantly, when once hearts had 
suffered this great change, wrongs were righted 
and the moral law observed in a purity which 
even rebuked our own perfunctory living. It 
is the old, cold habittie, whose piety is a me- 
chanical function and not spiritual life, who 



196 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



vexes the Church with bad morals. We would 
not hesitate to receive the worst man of yester- 
day, if we could be sure he was regenerate to- 
day: knowing by experience that his morals 
would result. To have been with Jesus, is to 
learn of Him. The ethical enlightenment is a 
part of the miracle. Perfect? No: for the 
gift of grace is not, since we are to grow in 
grace and knowledge. 

Walking the summer fields with my friend, 
a botanist, I carelessly whipped every tower- 
ing grass-head, or conspicuous weed with my 
stick. 

"Look you! What are you doing to these 
innocents ? " exclaimed my friend. 

"It is nothing but a mullen stalk, or a Cana- 
da thistle. I always limb mullens and rase 
these bristling foreigners." 

"But see," said he. 

And with a skilful finger he opened the 
mullen's yellow blossom, spread out its beau- 
ty and expressed its perfume, dropping its 
honey upon a velvet leaf which no human 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 197 



loom could weave. "Now God made this, as 
truly as He made you. I can see nothing but 
God's thoughts even in the pig- weed." 

The Christ-follower strikes no man, for to 
him Christ is visible in every human face; 
and for him the crimson mark of purchase is 
on each forehead. " Destroy not him for whom 
Christ died." 

Equanimity of temper, simple equipoise of 
the vital forces, preserved by good health and 
happy surroundings — I have often thought of 
my neighbor, who has looked in upon my 
grounds from his windows of comfort these 
nine good years ; and then of my mantel clock 
which has run by weights and pendulum, these 
same nine years. There it sits, the provoking 
white face, tick, tick, when I come in from 
business; tick when I seek my bed; tick, tick, 
when in the morning I complain to it, " What! 
Ticking yet? Do you not know I have not 
slept a wink, for troublous cares ? " When the 
parlors are full, it is ticking on in the same 
blank equanimity; when one is alone and sad, 



198 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



tick, tick, with no feeling of gloom in its heart. 
That day I lost half my fortune, tick, tick, at 
evening, as if it was in no danger of the auc- 
tion room. In the pauses of the music at the 
wedding, tick. When the casket was brought 
in and the assembly waited in dread silence for 
the preacher to begin, that white face, just 
above the other white face cold, had no tur- 
bulence of sorrow ; only tick, tick. These nine 
years the weights have been faithfully wound, 
and no one has disturbed the old clock's bal- 
ance there. Neither has my neighbor been 
disturbed: and he is known in all the coun- 
try round as a most amiable man, who always 
wears a smile. 

This very afternoon my grandchild, bent 
upon discovery, pulled an ancient wedge of 
wood from beneath the balanced mantel clock. 
With a jangle and a snarl it stopped its placid 
tick. A child's hand had thrown it out of its 
long equanimity. 

Strange to say, my neighbor met me at 
the hedge to-day, and scowled. "I am sick; 
and besides am sued at the law, the first 
time in my life ! " And he left me like a 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 199 



churl. They say about town, that of late 
he's done a cruel thing and foul, to escape a 
threatening poverty. Did he think this jost- 
ling would never come, astonishing life that 
his has been ? 

Is it possible to adjust a human soul so that 
it is independent of these jostlings, like my 
watch, say? Turn it upside down, lay it high 
or low, it keeps the law. Christ seems to speak 
of a readjustment of the soul, the heart of man, 
something done divinely to that inner some- 
thing we call human nature or disposition, 
whereby one may be at peace in the midst 
of all manner of evil. This miraculous equa- 
nimity must be, then, preferable to all other — 
must be the one great good of life on earth. 
" My peace I give you. Not as the world 
gives give I unto you." 

Can you not see him ? The admirable young* 
man. Well bred; entered on life with a good 
business of his own ; dwelling in a good house, 
his own; with a clean good name, his own; 
who never did any thing wrong that he will 



200 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



own; turning out of his own stables, under 
the sunset gold, behind two good horses, his 
own; catching sight of his clergyman at the 
street corner, with the church spire, stone to 
the tip, and well-cushioned within, beyond. 

" To be sure now. One established in life 
as I am needs just one thing more. I might 
die. To be sure I am insured — but that next 
world? I will join the Church, and that will 
end that matter." 

He does. Now who can say any thing 
against him ? No one. Who can say any 
thing for him ? Every one does. What do 
they say? "Admirable young man! A most 
admirable!" But in w^hat respect? "Well — 
he is — an admirable young man." None sees, 
look they ever so closely, a vein of selfishness 
running through all. His behavior pays; his 
prayers make sure; his charities fulfil duties, 
and duty is one of its conditions. He would 
not neglect one of the conditions, wise man 
and prudent. When his friend dies, a profli- 
gate, he makes little preachments to young 
children. "This man, my poor friend, did not 
even have his life insured — to say nothing of 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



201 



heavenly assurance. I am prepared, children; 
prepared. I lay great stress on that." 

But Heaven is not a mere patrimony. To 
sit on His right hand and left is not Christ's to 
give ; but shall be given to those who forgiven, 
redeemed, fitted, shall enter there. Heaven is 
the predicate, of which life is the subject. It 
would be better that this selfish man should 
almost forget Heaven, that Heaven may not 
forget him. Do you understand me? Let him 
think about life — such a life as Christ led on 
earth. That was a broken-hearted Life, so much 
of the way; ministrant to the poor, the sick, 
the ignorant. It bore a cross, and ended on 
a cross. It was most uncalculating ; it was 
Heaven itself; and Heaven above would not 
be heavenly without It. Of course then, It re- 
turned thither at the end. Where else should 
It go? 

Energy and fire are not all that one needs 
for a successful life. Sometimes they hurt more 
than they help. This young man, who was all 
energy and fire, who was going to get through 



202 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



with the dirty work of fortune-making by thirty, 
and retire to a Swiss lake-side, see him to-day. 
He is like a locomotive amid Vermont snow- 
drifts. A fresh machine it is, just from the 
shops, with plough in front. Stand aside all ! 
Pull out No. 24 onto a siding. Behold me! 
It hisses down the track, strikes, a white cloud ; 
slower, sputter, fizzle, clogged ! No glory now. 
How shall we get the thing out ? If it had 
not been so mighty, it had not buried itself 
so far. Those fires — if they were quenched, ice 
would cease to form from melted snows, to 
shackle her eternally, 'twould seem. 

An extreme case to be sure was this drunk- 
ard's widow. But she had ceased to feel, be 
sure of that. At first it was terrible; but she 
came to sit before it as the fisherman's wife 
drops her hands upon her knees when the 
storm is on in which she knows no boat could 
live these five hours past, staring blankly at the 
deep, benumbed. Then feeling returned a little. 
She hoped, exhorted, loved, and waited. Now 
she loves nobody — except the children, whom 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 203 



indeed she clasps at times, and holds them till 
her stony heart thaws out again into feeling. 
Lately, she tells me, she can walk unshod on 
snows and not feel it. She never goes to 
church now, nor anywhere else, save to the 
pawnbroker's. She says there was no shock 
when she passed the wedding-ring over the 
counter : only the thought, " Some time this 
will end. I shall have pawned the last value." 
" What then?" 

"Then? I don't care what then." 
" But the children ? " 

" Ah, yes, the children. Yes, I care — but — 
but, why I shall rest then. Do you not see ? " 

"We have come to feed you, and — " 

" Feed them. I have not hungered these four 
months. I am dead, though breathing." 

It was a broken heart. We did what we 
could, and are doing. She yet breathes. She 
is not insane, but benumbed. We are power- 
less. Only the great Physician can do for her. 
I bespeak for her this morning kindly prayers. 
Pray you for her, women of a happier lot, whose 
hands she clasped years ago in the aisles of 
this church, a sunny child. Can you guess her 



204 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



name ? And think as you pray that this grim 
world is full of those who are dead while they 
live; full of those whom no charity can cure, 
nor kindly human care nurse back to any thing 
like life again. They are fools who say kind- 
ness cures all. There are some hearts at least 
which need the new creation, a new birth, 
which only God can give, breathing into them 
that they become again living souls. 

You have observed rays of light in paintings. 
A brilliant speck, say a candle's blaze; then 
widening like the letter V into splendid radia- 
tion, till lost in space. Turn the V of light 
perpendicularly, its apex on the earth, its flare 
heavenward and lost in distance. The intense 
and glowing point is conviction of sin; then 
wider, Eepentance ; wider, Faith in Christ ; 
wider, and higher too, Pardon; and sweeping 
upward, widening as it mounts, Adoption of 
the regenerate soul; but higher still, and with 
a breadth for which eternity alone hath meas- 
ure, Communion with God. This is the Chris- 
tian religion. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



205 



The college observatory is upon the hill-top 
adjacent to the farmer s fields. The farmer's 
boy has often seen, through the open door 
of June twilights, the professor at his tasks. 
Those mystic instruments of shining brass ! 
The lad has an inborn fancy for star-gazing 
too; and often is upon his back, peering up- 
ward as the sundown marks the day's work 
done. He creeps nearer to-night, yet so stealth- 
ily that no sound disturbs the scholar through 
the summer doors. Five long hours the as- 
tronomer sat that night ; now at his table, now 
at his glass, with pencil, with thought, with 
eye; enthralled at length in one long ecstasy, 
so that he seemed to forget the paper of his cal- 
culations clutched these many minutes in his 
drooping hand, as the vision of the unrolled 
heavens slowly verifies the dream and proph- 
ecy of years. The farmer's lad, as by a fas- 
cination held, has lain coiled up upon the 
outer stairs, wondering, wishing, yet as silent 
as the voiceless deep of night, has even crept 
along, so powerless in the spell that charmed 
him, till his rough hand touches timidly the 
drooping hand that held the arithmetic of 



206 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



years, " Please, sir, — Pardon, I mean no harm, 
— please show a poor boy, who loves the stars 
as you do?" 

"Why, yes. Show you? Yes, and the whole 
world, were they here. Indeed the world shall 
know it by to-morrow. It is a night in fifteen 
years, my son, — the night in my fifty years 
of life. Be seated. There, across the field 
about midway. Is it not sublime ? " 

But the youth turning disappointed from the 
instrument, the astronomer breaks in with " To 
be sure. I forgot." And in his eager joy the 
enraptured scholar whisks out sheet on sheet 
of computations, and, talking to himself, goes 
leaping over the calculations of half his work- 
ing life-time. "There! Thus 1 reckoned it, and 
thus I've found it ! " 

The boy looks him in the face with, "Them's 
figers. I can't add. I didn't know figers had 
any thing to do with stars." 

" Can not add ? Oh no, he can not even add ! 
And yet comes here — " The half angry tone re- 
lieved itself in a contemptuous laugh, excusable 
almost, if it be remembered from what heights 
he came to find one who could not even add. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 207 



Men turn to the historic figure of Christ not 
without admiration. They hear mature Chris- 
tians speak of the rapturous joy of believers ; of 
great soul-visions and communings with the 
Heavenly Guest, who sups with them; and 
they can not understand it. They can not see. 
No : and the reason is, they can not add. They 
know not the simplest rule of this exalted har- 
mony. They have not even repented of sin. 
Yet they wonder that they can not see the 
glory without the shame, the crown without 
the cross, the end without the beginning. 

Upon the broad, white bosom of the higher 
Alps, a boulder, warmed by the mid-day glare, 
has coated itself over with ice like royal purple 
and a crown of glory in the sunbeams. Far 
up behind it for a league the massy snows, 
and the rock upon the lip of the precipice 
like a king. When those vast fields start in 
avalanche, can this old boulder cry a halt, re- 
fusing to stir, saying, " I am king?" 

"Yes! yes!" hiss and roar the snows. "You 
are king and leader over us white feathers : but 



208 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



only because you lead and move when we move, 
riding at the head of our destruction. You 
pause? Then be dethroned." 

Think of that prince of gamblers, whose for- 
tune, influence, personal station and renown are 
invested in his bad vocation and his leadership 
therein — think of him pausing, repenting and 
becoming Christian. Think of the sceptical 
philosopher after a fifty years life-work, follow- 
ing his convictions — if he had them — and seek- 
ing Christ in a Baptist prayer-meeting. Why, 
he throws away his life-work, and abdicates his 
throne among the doubters. He is a leader 
only while he leads one way. Think of the 
Russian czar becoming a Protestant, a Metho- 
dist, even if he had the conviction. Think of 
" the most popular fellow in the club " turning 
from his brilliant captaincy, to work the works 
of the meek and lowly Jesus. Think of Caia- 
phas seeking to do justice unto J esus. Behind 
the old high priest was a gorgeous palace, an 
official residence, splendid salaries and reve- 
nues, old families of the aristocratic class, the 
lust of power, the concealment of former ras- 
calities, the defence of the profligate fathers, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 209 



the desire to be consistent with his own bad 
record, — behind him, and the whole Sanhedrim, 
these; and the devil with his angels. He pause 
and begin to do right? 

The errand-boy loitering by my window, 
heedlessly pulled some blossoms to tatters, hav- 
ing snipped them from the border as he strolled 
out at the gate. Dreaming, or empty-headed, 
I know not which, he tore off petal after petal, 
unbraided the calyx, broke off the stamen, and 
even took pains to shred the green leaves, scat- 
tering the fragments behind him on the pave- 
ment. He whistled, and sung, and gazed about 
vacantly, yet ever and anon looking downward 
at his fingers, till it was time to quicken pace, 
the master being at the corner. 

" Spent, but charged." Thus read again the 
familiar faithful entry in the books of Nature, 
and the color-strewn pavement was the very 
page. The youth had had it — that fair crea- 
tion, full of knowledge, would he take it; full 
of taste, refinement, all an artist's culture; full 

of revelation about God, so that Jesus often 
14 



210 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



made of flowers and fields the texts for noblest 
teaching; he had had it, wasted it, and it was 
placed to his account. 

Like many an opportunity frittered away, be- 
hind our feet the record showing : like many a 
blessing. Nothing is unaccounted for in creation. 
The book-keeping is very accurate ; and, oftener 
than we think, the books are open to our own 
inspection, will we but turn and take the back- 
ward look. Who can stand in that great day 
of justice ? Christ be merciful to us sinners. 

You will not find a single illustrious life of 
godliness depicted in the Old Testament which 
had not this double purport, "God and my coun- 
try." Abraham was " The Friend of God " and 
"Father of the Faithful Nation." Moses was 
prince and priest. David's psalms are few of 
them personal, but in nearly all he is the spokes- 
man of his nation. Isaiah's moving pathos, Eze- 
kiel's brilliant exhortation, and Malachi's awful 
sermon breathe this tw r ofold sentiment, as the 
expression of loftiest piety, "Jehovah and our 
native land." 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 211 



It might well be a motive to the young of 
our day, "I will serve God that I may the 
better serve my times, that I may bless my 
country." 

It is rare to find a young man upon whom 
has .dawned the conviction, rt I am getting to 
be old enough to be responsible to God for 
the condition of my country. I feel upon my 
shoulders the pressure of my times. I must 
answer to high Heaven for the tendencies of 
modern society." 

An inventor may hide his mechanism for 
a time in the seclusion of his workshop; but 
sooner or later it must be brought forth and 
applied to use among men. This is its per- 
fecting. However diffident a man's first efforts 
towards reform of character, towards working 
out his Christian ideal, it must soon be known ; 
it must be goodness applied; it must be seen 
in his conduct with men. Goodness is connate. 
It begins with self; but if it ends there, it is no 
longer goodness of character. 



212 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



Let the boy, who to-day sweeps the store, 
forget to-morrow. This floor is his realm, the 
dust-motes his subjects, the broom his sceptre, 
and God has made him king. He would be 
an intruder behind the counter. But whoso 
offers to sweep for him intrudes, and reaching 
for his broom would usurp his kingly honors. 
Our divinely-appointed lot, if we be obedient 
souls, is To-Day; we have nothing to do with 
To-Morrow. 

Every Christian soul should feel itself "called 
to be an apostle by the will of God." A call to 
any life-work is a commission which confers 
rights. It is a supreme moment in a life when 
one passes out of "I must discharge this duty" 
into " I have a right to. I am commissioned. 
I must be respected. All laws of the king's 
realm now favor me, for I am placed under 
this cross by authority." 

The watcher at the head of the bed makes 
way for the sick boy's mother. The mother 
challenges the physicians, takes all responsi- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 213 

bility. It is her right to sit, day in, night out, 
in self-sacrificing vigil. 

The Christian, called of God, has a right to 
suffer, toil, be criticised, and misunderstood for 
the Master's sake. 

We may well marvel at the Divine patience. 
Discouraged utterly, a pastor and deacons ex- 
claim, "This soul is dead. Why trouble ye 
the Master?" But He puts us all forth, say- 
ing, " Not dead, but sleeping ! " and offering 
to go in alone with that soul, would cry, " Son, 
daughter, I say unto thee arise." 

I have stood in dreamy mood looking up 
into the astral glories of a winter's cloudless 
night, through whose transparent air each dis- 
tant star shone clear as planets, and asked the 
old question, Are any of these spheres inhab- 
ited? The astronomers' varied answers and 
the law of analogy leave me in confusion, out 
of which my soul will claim this much of cer- 
tainty. If souls dwell yonder, they never knew 



214 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



the curse of broken law ; but God's will is done 
in heaven, in all the heaved-up arch which 
overhangs the earth. Then is this globe the 
wandering star of all the spheres; swaying 
off* in the dizzy aberration of a lawlessness 
which threatens to shatter all its fair structure. 
Its " whole creation" is shaken by the sin of 
its noblest denizen, for whom it was made to 
be a home, the man. Failing to bless him, be- 
cause he will not be blessed, it fails all. Mil- 
ton saw the abode of God 

"With opal tow'rs and battlements adorn'd 
Of living sapphire. 

And fast by, hanging in a golden chain, 
This pendent world, in bigness as a star 
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon." 

That heavenly shackle loosened, snapped, — why 
then to rescue and restore this one erratic ball, 
may not the Son of God well lend us three 
and thirty beautiful years? What though the 
trembling thing comes slowly back to har- 
mony, yet rocking for these eighteen hundred 
years with the throes of its dread error? The 
hand of the Finder is steady upon it; and, ere 
long, the kingdom shall come again upon the 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 215 



earth entire, as it is in Heaven. Christ's com- 
ing to save, to readjust, to harmonize this one 
splendid structure out of all the universe is 
rational, is worthy of a God. 

Men become accustomed to the gospel phrase- 
ology, so that these precious words, so full of 
meaning to a believer's ears, are like the strik- 
ing of a steeple clock, which, heard for years, 
wakes not the sleeper in chambers not sixty 
feet below its iron tongue. 

" Christ seeking after me ! " To realize the 
fact has this peculiarity; that immediately one 
finds himself. I am wanted ? I, who did not 
even want myself? In a thronged street of a 
foreign city to feel the pressure of a hand, and, 
turning, to meet a friend's face, who assures us 
he was seeking after us, is no longer to be lost 
in a crowd, with innumerable temptations al- 
luring. We are ourselves, with our own prop- 
er, reputable, home character to sustain. More- 
over our heart whispers inly, "How kind of 
Him. He was seeking us." 



216 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



If one accost the vagabond with " I was look- 
ing for yon," his heart gives two leaps ; the first, 
if perhaps yon are the sheriff; the second of 
delight that a well-clad citizen has a word for 
snch as he. Entering upon conversation which 
ignores his rags bnt treats with him as a man, 
with capacities — mayhap yon have known 
him long ago as a skilled artisan and • now be- 
speak him as if he might still be employed — 
he straightens himself, readjusts the wretched 
attire, and gives answers of intelligence. He 
finds himself. For one brief moment he has 
become a man again. 

This self-finding searches him deeply how- 
ever. Soon his own soul whispers that a de- 
cent man must have marked these tatters that 
tell the tale of vagabondage. His ready tongue 
grows silent. At last, with an outburst of con- 
fession, he puts it in plain words, that he is no 
longer the man you once knew him. He is 
fallen. All is gone. Yet now that you have 
sought him, if you only would trust him ! Yes, 
even if you would rebuke, correct, chastise, but 
trust him. 

The etching is so familiar, that any hand may 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 217 



fill out the picture with living forms. It is the 
way to save men. 

Disparage not the Avisdom of God. He need- 
eth none to instruct Him. He saves men by 
sending His Son, who seeks after them, one by 
one. Mystery is in the gospel ; but it is not 
all mystery to the careful student of human 
nature. 

Last summer there grew a young flower-stalk 
under our eyes. It was almost perpetually in 
bloom, one blossom falling off only to make 
way for another, the season through. In an 
adjoining bed there towered another stalk of 
the same genus and variety; but it consumed 
half the season for its one lone blossom, and, 
that fallen, stood bare till autumn, when it 
might have put forth once more had not the 
unkindly frosts prevented. The gardener ex- 
plained that one was a youth, the other very 
aged. A well-reared child in a Christian house- 
hold is in almost constant blossoming of relig- 
ious inquiry. At your knee he opens into seri- 
ous, far-away questions about God, Heaven and 



218 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



the whereabouts of his baby brother whom you 
lost. At unexpected moments he lifts his tiny 
hands, murmuring to the twilight stars that 
gaze into his window. The morning prayer, 
the hour in church, the sight of others at the 
altar, the slightest word of exhortation, the 
annual revival interest, all move him into a 
depth of contrition and great longing. Till at 
last appearing before the brotherhood to make 
profession, youth almost invariably narrates sev- 
eral crises in which it first began to ponder 
upon the soul's salvation. 

How different is it with the life of the non- 
pious adult. Contrast the variety of serious re- 
ligious convictions in a man past fifty years of 
age. Once in five or ten years a great danger 
or calamity forces him into the flower of tender 
thought. That is all. The harvest is passing, 
the summer is ending, and he is not saved. 

There are laws of averages with regard to 
" opportunities " of becoming pious as there are 
in secular matters. There are under-laws, out 
of sight. Looking only at one or two house- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



219 



holds, one sex seems in danger of predominat- 
ing. The under-law, girding the globe, pre- 
serves the ratio of male to female births in 
practical parity. Death seems an uncertain 
event to all save the Insurance Actuary, who 
reads the under-law. " Opportunities," that is 
eligible openings for successful employment, 
probably run something like this. Calculating 
upon a basis of ten thousand young lives, a 
youth under twenty years of age has ten good 
opportunities; between that age and thirty he 
has twelve; between that and thirty-five he 
has eight; on to forty-five, if he has wasted all 
these, he may look for three openings more. 
Beyond fifty, if he has failed to find his suc- 
cessful place in life, the under-law reads that 
he has less than one likelihood left. 

God being ready at all times and in all cir- 
cumstances to hear the penitent's prayer, ex- 
perience shows that the majority of professed 
Christians are women. This sad disparity has 
been observed ever since we first had reliable 
statistics, though we believe it is slowly les- 
sening. A discreet young man, in considering 
the question of personal piety, can not afford 



220 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



to ignore the under-iaw, which, reads that his 
sister is more likely to come to Christ than he. 
Is it disposition, or surroundings? Both. Not 
God. Embrace your opportunity while it is 
called to-day, the accepted time. 

My own experience is that, given one hun- 
dred new converts, not three will be found past 
fifty years of age; between fifty and forty, not 
five; between forty and thirty, not ten; while 
more than eighty of the one hundred will have 
scarcely touched thirty years of age. " Oppor- 
tunity" waits on youth. You who are accus- 
tomed to weigh percentages, read the under- 
law, which declares that more than eighty per 
cent, of the pious espoused their piety on the 
sunny side of young manhood. "Kemember 
now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, when 
the evil days come not, nor the years draw 
nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure 
in them." 

It may well be questioned if there can be a 
friendship which will survive the test of years, 
founded on any thing less than sacrificial ser- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 221 

■ 

vice. We talk of affinities, but they fade; of 
kindred ties, but loan me your babe which I 
will serve to his young manhood, and I have 
his heart — not you. In fashionable homes the 
hired nurses serve in love and steal little hearts, 
if you are not careful. We often make grave 
mistakes with kinship. We presume upon a 
mystic tie, of which the story books make 
much, at which nature laughs. He is my 
brother, and is bound to love me. It matters 
not how I treat him. Hence too often the sor- 
riest friends are one's own kith and kin. Many 
a man is to-day striving to stand true to blood 
relationships from a sense of duty. But look- 
ing over their heads to another, tried and 
proved through years, he exclaims, " that 
you were my brother, old heart of oak ! I 
have reason to love you better than my own." 

The "missionary spirit" originates in the 
breast of our heavenly Father Himself ; and 
is nothing else but the disposition the true 
God has to make Himself known to all His 
intelligent creatures. It is no weird, mystic 



222 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 

interest, attainable only by a fortunate few of 
tile pastors who have caught it somehow and 
somewhere inexplicably, or within the reach 
only of a few churches strangely known for 
their missionary zeal, while others hopelessly 
chase after this will -o'- the -wisp. If a soul 
knows the true God, vitally and experimental- 
ly, he burns to tear aside the veil which hides 
him from others; or to correct distressful mis- 
conceptions of his Fatherly goodness in any 
minds. He takes his willing place amid such 
awful preachers as the heavens, which declare 
His glory; and the firmament, which shows His 
handiwork; the majestic providences, from Ba- 
bel to the destruction of the Spanish Arma- 
da; with miracle, angel, prophet, seer, preach- 
er, and Christ Himself, whose mighty callings 
have been to reveal, to manifest the one true 
God. 

The ''missionary spirit" in a Christian church 
is not charity for the bodily pains of hunger, 
cold, or sickness; nor pity for the victims of 
heathen tyrants; nor zeal for social improve- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 223 



ment and secular education among the dark- 
ened sons of men. An intelligent human com- 
passion serves these ends. There is indeed a 
nobler than natural compassion, moving the 
hearts that are Christ's. There is a Christian 
" charity," using the word in its modern sense. 
But the spirit of missions is more fundamental 
than even Christian charity. It is the all-mas- 
tering desire to preach Christ, the Lamb of 
God which takes away the sins of the Avorld. 
It would cure at the fountain-head. The mod- 
ern church must make a distinction between 
a plate of soup and the simple story of Christ 
crucified for sinners. Common kindness would 
give to the starving ; but only believers can 
be relied upon to forward the preaching of 
the cross. We must rise above catch -penny 
pleas, and rest our appeals upon the high 
ground of spreading abroad our religion in 
the earth. This is what we ought always to 
mean by the word "missions"; applying to the 
other deeds the words the language so richly 
affords us. 



224 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



Do we dream of shutting up three hundred 
millions of people, in China, from contact with 
the rest of the race? Man is swarming over 
this little globe. A traveller can encircle it in 
eighty days. If it was their bodily presence 
we had alone to fear ! But it is their ideas, 
and ideas are not chained. There is nothing 
in Western Eationalism or license, but has its 
counterpart and encouragement in the East. It 
is ignorance of a spiritual God, the conscious- 
ness of sin and the madness of sin's pang. 
There is nothing the matter with the China- 
man but also troubles every unconverted bo- 
nanza king or politician of America: only the 
one case is complicated by ignorance, and the 
other aggravated by knowledge. There is but 
one cure for both, namely, the blood of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

There is a period of youth when the person 
we are least acquainted with, of all the wide 
world, is ourselves. As in country houses, in 
the long brilliant days of advancing summer 
one is tempted out of doors ; we can not endure 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 225 



the close rooms, but must walk afield, musing 
in hammocks, or prone upon the grass under old 
trees, the book fallen crumpled at our side; 
we only go indoors to snatch a meal or halt- 
ingly retreating from lawn to veranda because 
it is deep night, when at last the gnat-soiled 
lamps are lighted only to show the way to bed. 
And on a day of rain we are like starlings in a 
cage, protesting if there be not soon a breaking 
from the north-west we will robe for it and dare 
the storm. Grandma, how can you sit content 
within, each day? But in winter we dwell with- 
in and learn each nook and comfort of the wide 
old dwelling. Youth lives out of doors of it- 
self. The schoolmaster is telling you then of 
Csesar and Frederick; of other mens thoughts, 
but nothing of yourselves. You do not even 
know your own bodies, and what makes for 
health or disease. You know botany and as- 
tronomy, while, from flower to star, you are 
ignorant only of yourselves. Society tempts 
you abroad, so that you deport yourselves for 
others tastes. If tenderly reared, no question 
of moment is forced home upon your inly dis- 
covered fitness, but too kind "advice" settles 



226 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



every problem for you. The soul is not trained 
to repose with itself; in its own secret, noble 
chamber, and know itself. A rainy day, with 
God's Spirit, might lead to heart-searchings and 
repentance, "Wherefore rainy days are sent. 
In age we must sit at home. Alas if our 
home be desolate then ! 

The broad leaf of the sunflower plant presents 
at a glance stamen, midvein, veinlets, and vein- 
ulets. It is five inches by three. Unless you 
are familiar with the microscope, however, you 
would not suppose this little speck upon my 
paper of the size of a pin-head was an equally 
perfect leaf with every appropriate part. Look 
upon this microscopic photograph of the same, 
enlarging it to five inches by three. From 
stamen to veinulets, all are there. God is per- 
fect everywhere. 

To read of the way of salvation in Eomans, 
with every step described in philosophical per- 
spective and then of the thief on the cross, is 
perhaps to conclude that the later entered para- 
dise by a simpler way than Paul sets forth. But 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 227 



a careful scrutiny reveals, in the malefactor, con- 
sciousness of sin and its confession, fear of God 
and belief in the Innocent Sacrifice, assent 
to J esus' Messiahship, in that he addressed Him 
as "Lord" of a kingdom, and trusting prayer 
with its absolute self-surrender. 

Midwinter thunder-storms afford but a single 
flash of lightning; but in that one flash the 
benighted traveller has seen the distant hills, 
the naked forests rocking in moaning winds, 
the farmhouse near, the bridge, the stream, 
the buckles of the harness and bolts of the 
vehicle. 

Be assured the soul may take each needed 
step in an interval of dying too brief for our 
measurement. Between the explosion and the 
falling of the wall ; between the crash and the 
coming in of waters, now at knees, waist, 
lips, the soul may grow sedate, review a life, 
fear God, repent of sin, recognize Christ, and 
cast itself upon His mercy. Thank God, the 
narrative of the dying thief repentant, spells 
out the eleventh hour upon the dial-plate of 
mercy. The X and the I at the right hand. 

But the soul must, as well as may. The small 



228 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



leaf must be as perfect as the large. God is per- 
fect everywhere, and every conversion must be 
a perfect handiwork of God. "Will you however 
take the hazard? For in that sudden hour 
there will be a tempest of great darkness ; a swirl 
of wild winds; efforts to escape; sorrowful re- 
membrance of friends, one by one passing in re- 
view of adieu; hurried calculations of business 
affairs abruptly shattered ; a breath wasted in a 
curse ; a cry for life here, when one should only 
pray for life hereafter — and you may miss your 
way. The other malefactor missed his way, 
and, stumbling, fell forever. 

My friend will rest his soul on nothing "of 
which he is not certain." After all his reading 
and thinking, refusing faith, he tells me he is 
certain of only three things, namely: That he 
lives, that he suffers, that he must die. 

There is just one condition of absolute soli- 
tude in our lives; one possibility of being ut- 
terly alone. It is not on the mountain-top, nor 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 229 



in tlie crowded street. It is not even when one 
thinks. It is the moment of decision; the 
supreme instant of the "I will." 

Sudden death is a stern accountant, and ac- 
knowledges only the actual footings on our 
books. With Death in this guise all our plans 
of intended good, however grand or noble, go 
for naught; he reads off work verily done, cold- 
ly saying, "That's what you are. It amounts 
to so much, and by that you must be known 
among men." 

A man is austere and unsympathetic in his 
family. He rises early and toils late. Years 
pass in which he has seemed a sullen, or at 
best an uncompanionable, husband and father. 
Yet he loves his household ardently in his se- 
cret heart. He excuses himself in that he is 
so busy. He intends to reveal himself one of 
these days. The community regard him as a 
hard man. But he will surprise the city, when 
he manifests himself. To-day he does drive 
sharp bargains ; but the world should wait. 
He knows what is in his own heart. 



230 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



To-morrow there is a fainting at his desk. 
He revives to whisper to his children, "You 
have not known rne. I loved you all the while, 
and was about to — " when the poor lips grow 
stiff. They only know him for what he was 
in fact: — cold and hard. 

When I was a lad I used to walk on before 
the hay-makers, by the edge of the standing 
grass; and, as the scythes of the six mowers 
flashed and % swept in tremendous, panting uni- 
son, laying low a wide space of two rods, I 
apostrophized the conspicuous clumps of clover 
as yet untouched. "Destruction is coming, you 
must go down. And you, tuft of stray oats 
nodding so proudly ; and you, family of thistles, 
arrogant and ready to seed. All, all must fall/' 
I have heard men so speak of God's all-levelling 
power over souls. It is indeed true, that, as 
He lives, every knee shall bow and confess. 
But is not that enforcement an event of eter- 
nity? On this side of the Judgment He con 
descends to plead with men, tenderly invit- 
ing all that labor and are heavy-laden that 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 231 



He may give them rest. Earth enjoys the 
smile of the Lamb. The day of His wrath is 
to come. 

In a music store yesterday, a German pianist 
dropped down before his favorite instrument 
and indulged his reverie over the keys. An 
Italian violinist sauntered to his side and added 
his notes to the dream. Neither of these two 
performers could speak the language of the 
other. An English songstress, sitting hard by, 
touched by the familiar strains, joined her voice 
without words; while a spell fell over us all, 
listening to divine harmony. The performers 
had no language in common, nor had the lis- 
teners; but the love of melody wrapped us in 
a holy unity which dull speech would have 
profaned. The love of Christ on earth unites 
all hearts; and is the sure prophecy of that 
far-off brotherhood with which, out of every 
nation and with every tongue, men shall sing 
the new song in heaven. 



232 



ARE THESE THIXGS SO? 



The problem of personal salvation is narrowed 
down to this. Are yon willing to be converted ? 
If yon say yes, with all the heart, the Holy 
Spirit is ready to gnide yon step by step. Yon 
may desire, withont being willing. Yon have 
often desired to visit that stupendous structure 
which spans the East River ; to connt its mass- 
ive stones; to study the complex figures of the 
engineer; to stand among its iron shronds and 
hear the melody of an iEolian harp which gales 
twang in grand diapason; to catch the views 
of clond-land and plain where the two firma- 
ments commingle at one's feet. As yon dream, 
yon desire ardently. Are yon willing? Will 
yon know all? Come. The hand of the cus- 
todian is npon the latch of the outer gate. Yon 
receive all yon are willing to receive. Bnt soon 
yon cry halt. Some sndden terror or reluctance 
seizes you. Does the gnide fail ? Not so : bnt 
yon are not willing to go on, though vain and 
white-faced Desire is still gazing upward to 
what the Will declines. Say that you are will- 
ing to know the heights, depths, lengths, and 
breadths of the Christian life, and the work 
of your soul's saving is as good as done. The 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 233 



Holy Spirit knows best what door to open for 
you first ; whether doctrinal obstacles, mysteries 
of faith, repentance of some darling sin, or the 
cross of sacrifice ; but He will never leave you, 
till you have passed over the river into the 
Eternal City. 

The more trivial our excuses the more do 
they insult Divine Love. A man is waiting for 
his friend's company, before he seeks Christ; 
or dislikes some church-member; or quibbles 
over a minor point of doctrine; or is too poor 
in pocket to join a church, or too busy. It is 
because these are trifles that there can be no 
breathing room for love, stifled in the mote- 
loaded air. 

From insults to love come tragic divorce- 
ments of fondest hearts. The lone wife, pacing 
her room, pausing at the window wistfully look- 
ing into the night, is saying, "If it were some 
great, grand errand which kept him so mucli 
from my side ; if some noble passion for art or 
study or even business, with which I was forced 
to share his hours. But when it is a whim, the 



234 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



idle preference for the club, the race-course, a 
horse and trifles, undiscoverable trifles! Pre- 
ferred to me, living, warm, and offering myself 
to him. It is not grief. It is love insulted." 
She blushes and throbs with the shame of light 
esteem, all undeserved. Hence come estrange- 
ments wide as the gulf between Heaven and 
Hell. 

Christ, the adored of angels, stands offering 
Himself, His exquisite companionship, His purity 
of pardon, providence, and peace. He sets ajar 
before man's eyes the door of Heaven, through 
which gleam splendors and float snatches of 
rare song. Man affronts the ready Donor with 
contemptible chaffering and balancing of pal- 
try excuses. Whoso loveth not Christ "more 
than these" is "not worthy of Him," because 
he can not love Him. 

Not unfrequently certain so-called " worldly 
pleasures " are the sole obstacles in the way of 
an espousal of Christ. But why not take them 
along with you? Because, in my mind, an 
issue seems raised over them. Very well. It 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 235 



is no kindness, to one in your state of contro- 
versy with God's Spirit, to suggest that the 
Church is not so rigorously puritanic concern- 
ing amusements as it once was; for that is not 
the point in debate. The fact is, God sees there 
is something you prefer to His favor ; something 
dearer to you than a Saviour's love ; something 
you will not surrender if He asks it, and as the 
token of complete submission. And if it were 
as innocent as Abraham's love for Isaac, there 
can be no peace till you are willing to yield all 
to Him. 

It is the piqued child's endeavor to dissent 
in some one last act necessary to absolute obe- 
dience. The parent can not desist till the last 
triviality is performed. The child is anxious 
to evade by one tittle, as the sign of that he 
was not wholly subdued. We all remember 
that peace came only with utter assent. We 
obeyed all. 

What the soul needs is a cry, My Father! 
Nothing is to be preferred to thy favor. Give 
me that, and I seek no indulgence contrary to 
Thy loving will. 



236 ARE THESE THIXGS SO? 



Christ asked the disciples to watch with Him 
in Gethsemane. Tender touch of nature, to 
make Him with the whole world kin. In any 
great trial this craving of companionship, if no 
more; if no hand can help nor voice can soothe, 
yet a motionless, silent companionship; who is 
a stranger to the desire? It begins in child- 
hood, when two infants will walk hand in hand 
"in the dark," where neither would go alone. 
Do these two innocents calculate that the twain 
are more defensible against "the giant" than 
one ? By no means. It is the embryo of that 
wordless hunger of the soul, developing as life 
broadens, and finding its most exalted mani- 
festation in Gethsemane. Invalids, who have 
counted the strokes of midnight wakeful hours, 
conjured by the wall- flashes and flickers of dim 
lamps, and need no other service, cry out — Fa- 
ther ! Mother ! Some one ! It is nothing, only 
to hear you answer that you are there. Then 
we sit by them, long and patiently, perhaps 
dozing discij)le-like as we hold their hands, 
saying and doing nothing, but being — near 
them. Through the streets of Paris, between 
prison and block, the most desperate were often 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



237 



observed sitting upon the cart's edge, hand 
in hand. Triumph wants friends also. Who 
would wish to prosper, if no loved one could 
see and share his doing well. As young men 
lose fathers who were the inspirers and specta- 
tors of their achievements for a little space of 
the life-race, it seems at first that death has 
killed our ambition, by snatching away the 
audience ; till we take refuge in the dream that 
our beloved may be among that heavenly cloud 
of witnesses, still looking on. 

Jesus knew, as the crisis approached, that 
the acme of sorrow must ever be met in soli- 
tude ; but up to the outer vestibule of that soli- 
tude He brought the eight disciples ; and, to the 
last inner door, He brought the three. Even 
when He must be alone, in conflict and victory, 
He yet emerges twice to feel the helpfulness of 
His beloved near Him. He wants our sympa- 
thy still, in His warfare with sin on the earth. 
He who so wanted the society of men will have 
His own with Him where He is, at last and 
forever. 



238 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



To stand in the presence of some exalted 
human character is to be thrilled with the 
consciousness, "I also am a man." The ex- 
perience, however, is incomplete. We are to 
bend over the besotted human form, curled in- 
sensible at the curbstone, reflecting, 44 1 also 
am a man : and by this foul insult of sin upon 
my kind am I dishonored. " 

It may seem strange to the unbelieving 
world, but the fondest scene in the life of Je- 
sus to the believers' heart is not where the 
Christmas stars are gently beaming through 
the robes of angels who sing noblest over- 
tures above the Holy Child. Calvary, that 
hill of tragedy, has for us a softer charm. 
The distance of years obscures to our eyes, 
in moments of rapturous vision, the angry 
rabble once swarming up its slopes, and we 
see no man save J esus only. The hoarse cries 
have died upon the air of centuries, and we 
hear no words but Christ's last prayers. The 
rasp of cords and hammer strokes we hear not, 
nor think upon any of the torturous machinery 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



239 



for His murder. Nor, in our most blessed hours 
of contemplation, does He always seem to us to 
be in pain, but in calm repose ; as if the rugged 
hill had changed into a temple beneath the 
skies of Holy Land, and the wooden beams a 
throne, a high pulpit of great honor, against 
which He leans in triumph looking out upon 
a wide and welcoming world. The blackness 
of that unnatural night has then for us re- 
moved, restored to white of day again. We 
see Him in the light. His countenance is 
light, His head is beaming with a halo, His 
hands extend in benediction. The whole is 
to us as the sun of a morning in the spring- 
time, and our winter is forever passed away. 
We picture Him upon the cross to our little 
children, who, far from being shocked, are gen- 
tly won upon. Our women pause hard by, gaz- 
ing with yearning eyes; and our noblest men 
find in that vision happiness complete for fac- 
ulties refined. 

There are some home-circles in which the 
mother is in advancing health with the ad- 



24:0 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



vancing years. Strangely preserved, time but 
adds a riper maternal beauty. The children 
never saw her but in robust strength. There 
are others of us who can not remember when 
mother was not an invalid. We were warned 
to be gentle in our play about her knee; we 
grew up to be lads, proudly supporting her 
tottering steps upon the lawn, — a rare and gen- 
ial summers day upon the lawn, — enviously 
watching the westering sun. We recall days 
of oppressive stillness in the house, not once or 
twice, when we sat hushed and huddled in 
a distant chamber, many coming and going 
at the gate, fathers face an agony, called 
down to kiss the hand so moveless on the 
coverlet a last farewell. Living yet, it is as 
rare flowers survive the rigorous winters, un- 
der glass. The influence of such a woman, 
when she endures well, her noble courage, her 
calmness, her unrepining, her exalted trust in 
Christ — children, themselves grown and in 
sieges of trouble, bethink them of her, with 
such inspirations to fortitude as no impersonal 
doctrines can effect. The outer world wonders 
at the childrens' constancy, themselves in trou- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 241 



ble; not knowing of the hidden life-chapter 
which has taught them, and ever must go on 
teaching them, while memory endures. 

u As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so 
He opened not His mouth" is not simply the 
description of Christ's meekness: it is a hint 
as to the best way to approach mental con- 
flicts, to pass through temptations. He said 
also, "The Prince of this world cometh; here- 
after I shall not talk much more with you." 
The soul must knit itself for war, must be 
abstracted, must be wordless. Words adjourn 
the hour of action, and eat up reason, affec- 
tions, conscience, will. Further advice confuses 
by presenting added alternatives for adjudica- 
tion, which fatigues the soul before action has 
even begun. Have you never shut yourself 
into your room, resolved never to leave it, or 
suffer another to enter, till you had decided? 
Alone with God and His angels the ordeal is 
terrible, but heroic. Some of you talk too much 
with your friends, or foolishly study the ex- 
ample of others concerning your duty. Go 
16 



242 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 

by yourself. Fall upon your knees. Fight the 
good fight of faith to victory. When we next 
look upon your face let us see the glow of 
triumph there. 

When a brooklet is aroused by spring floods 
there is the deep under-purpose to reach the 
sea ; and the surface manifestations, froth, 
dead wood, noisy babblings. A human heart 
in conflict over duty has the under-current of 
desire, at least it ought. But it has also froth, 
drift-wood and babblings of its holiest secrets. 
How garrulous we are in trouble. We talk to 
any one who will listen. Hence at such times 
one should keep the company only of his best, 
most discreet friends. What a treasure-box is 
such a friend's memory, after we get cool of 
our fever, and open it. The best friend is God. 
Complain and moan into His ear. He will keep 
that which you have committed to His hands. 
Who else ever did? 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 243 



There is a final transition period in tlie strug- 
gle of penitent souls, which I, for one, am dis- 
posed to profoundly respect in its sacred seclu- 
sion. I can walk about them, within reach of 
the faintest call, and pray for them; but they 
do not wish to talk, there is nothing more I 
can say; leave them with God. It is a rare 
stalk which I have longed to see blossom, and 
fingers itch to meddle ; folding down the calyx 
you one side the bud, which is no sooner done 
than regretted; that one petal which seems to 
bind, is loosened — and at once carefully re- 
placed. No, I have done all I can; enriched, 
watered, and purged it of every parasite. Now, 
set in the sunlight, it shall be left to its own 
sweet birth into beauty. 

It is the mother and daughter, at neighbor- 
ing windows through the long golden hours of 
many an afternoon, each busy with the needle, 
but busier far with thoughts. The younger is 
feeling after Christ. The elder is watching and 
praying. Their eyes meet, speaking volumes, 
but the sacred silence is unbroken by words. 
Now and then a question, eagerly answered, 
but no rude preaching nor prying curiosity fore- 



244 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



ing its way into the secret vestibule where 
Christ and His Spirit alone must work the 
works ; till at last the young heart opens wide 
to the Master and to all. It is not every soul 
that needs such treatment, possibly ; but surely 
there are who do. 

Nor is it indifference here delineated. It is 
the hardest of tasks to be a full-charged cloud 
ready to burst upon the earth, and yet decline 
to uptear young rootlets with a deluge, and at 
the right moment to part asunder, that the sun 
may give life and growth. 

A busy merchant, with the first flashes of 
gray about the temples, sits opening the most 
prosaic morning mail. At length, over one 
letter, he pauses long, reading how " the trans- 
fer of the little remains to his family plot has 
been successfully completed, at the left of his 
father s mound," with enclosure of a bill for cer- 
tain dollars and cents. " So then, all together 
at last. Eemains ? I wonder what they found, 
after all these years ? " And stepping to the 
window, where a little strip of blue sky peeps 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 245 



down amid blank walls, his eye goes on a 
search in obedience to his thought. The body 
he has; but the spirit, — it was his firstborn, — 
JiiSj — where? The dull cares of business re- 
call him, and he forgets, till evening; when, 
at the home tea-table, he remarks, " My dear, I 
heard from Mount Auburn to-day, and that's 
arranged at last." 
Observing tears, — 

" Why, Mary! It was more than twenty years 
ago ! " 

" Twenty-one last month," responds the more 
accurate mother-heart. 

Drawing near to bend above him in tender 
caress, she goes on to confess how her heart, in 
calling the roll of its loved ones, always in- 
cludes the tiny face loaned to them for a few 
short months so long ago ; and that her thought 
makes eager search, where? Past what star 
of the evening? In what direction of dim 
space? "For he was ours, you know, and is 
ours still. He was so feeble and defenceless, 
to fly so far ! " 

It is in such hours that there comes a mighty 
yearning to every true man, somewhere, some 



246 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



time, to gather all one's own again. Not in 
fenced plot of mouldering earth, with iron gate 
and fastenings, bnt on a fair, far shore, where 
life shall make reply to life. 

There are homes so united in Christ, w r hose 
departed are so felt to be with Him, whose liv- 
ing are so trusting in Him, that they are one 
family yet, part on earth part in Heaven. 
There are others, who are troubled with a great 
fear. Of the dead, there was one who left no 
token of faith. Could he have foreseen the an- 
guish he inflicts by his tokenless departure ! Or 
it may be, while infancy is safe ever, maternity, 
yet on earth, has no hope in Christ. Whatever 
may be the recognitions or affinities of eternity, 
while yet here below there is no blessing so 
beatific to a believer's breast as a whole family 
united in Christ. 

Fifty years ago a family of four oaks sprang 
side by side from the soil, and straightway 
three of them grew upward towards a patch 
of blue sky revealed far up among the umbra- 
geous canopy of older trees. For a while, how- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



247 



ever, they had to endure ground odors, and 
the early twilights of their green- walled prison 
house, though now these many years standing 
crest and crown above forty acres of woodland. 
The fourth oak paused, stunted half-way up, for 
some reason, often complaining to his three 
lusty brothers with question if he also was 
not kindred, if they did not all have com- 
mon root-room. The giants confess relation- 
ship, but point out that it is impossible to 
hold high communings with one so low down. 
If the groundling would only grow up to them, 
they suggest, where branches softly interlace 
in fraternal caresses, moved by zephyr-breaths, 
proudly toss together their caps in air with 
stronger winds, and, heads together, wondering 
over the vainly counted stars. In human fam- 
ines the spiritually minded hold eminent con- 
verse from which the non-religious members, 
must needs be separated. A kind-hearted hus- 
band has never been the religious teacher of 
his children, for instance; but the pious wife 
alone has bent their knees in prayer, indoctrin- 
ated them and guided them to Christ. The 
mother, with three of the children, hold ex- 



248 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



alted converse of spiritual and heavenly things. 
What an ecstasy would thrill them if father 
and the older brother would grow up to take 
with them views of such things as are spiritu- 
ally discerned. Dwelling together even now in 
affection, yet within the noblest realm of being 
they never sympathize. The woman, indeed, 
for years has been obliged gently to counter- 
act, to weed out from the home the paternal 
influence, so far as religion is concerned. There 
is a world of meaning in the "fear of his ex- 
ample," which she only whispers to her own 
heart. The unification of that home should 
take place about its noblest types; the two 
should become like the best, not the best like 
the two. 

When the ships of Europeans first crossed 
the western Atlantic, approaching these shores, 
they were puzzled to observe that, while sails 
were properly set to westering winds and 
the rudder rightly held, they yet drifted out 
of their course to the northward. They were 
ignorant of the Gulf Stream, which, with its 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



249 



warm genial current, lay round them for miles 
on every side. When worldly-minded men go 
out into the sea of business, seeking gain, 
they take no account, through ignorance, of 
that Great Power who "maketh poor and ma- 
keth rich," and are at a loss to account for 
the strange sweepings out of their purposed 
course. The spiritually -minded business man 
always takes into account this unknown co- 
efficient, God's will and pleasure. 

I have observed, on resuming arbor-seat and 
book after a bright July night in the country, 
a row of solemn-looking larvae reposing unaf- 
frighted upon the opposite bench. Full of 
wonder that these usually timid insect spec- 
tators now regarded me so attentively, I rise 
to observe that each is but a chrysalis, a per- 
fect outer semblance, from whence the butter- 
fly has gone. 

Many a preacher would be astonished could 
he know how generally have the spirits of his 
auditors, upon a Sabbath morning, fled afar, 
to the distant store or city; while the bodies 



250 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



only, like the chrysalis, sit, solemn-eyed and 
glassy, in the present pews. 

On the Sabbath, a mechanic lays aside ham- 
mer and saw; a laborer folds his arms. All 
can see at a glance that they are observing 
the day with abstention from toil. The busi- 
ness or professional man, however, carries his 
workshop in his brain, his utensils never being 
of manual toil. Who can detect whether he is 
resting on God's day or not? Only the All- 
seeing Eye; and that vision often observes the 
most pretentious religionists busy in the brain 
workshop, forging in silver and gold for the 
morrow. 

Those who have served a battery upon the 
battle-field tell us that, at intervals, they are 
forced to pause, in calm self-possession, heed- 
ing not the awful excitement, that the guns 
may cool; yes, and that the smoke may lift to 
furnish accurate aim; yes, and because ammu- 
nition is exhausted. No Christian can fight the 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 251 



battle of the week without the quiet Sabbath to 
cool off his guns. He needs repose of soul. He 
wants heavenly breezes to lift the earth-lower- 
ing shadows. He must replenish his store from 
the secret place of prayer and meditation. 

It is a good ending to a life which counts. 
A good beginning is easy enough. Who has 
not made hundreds of them ? Look at my 
wheat field. The yield will be light this year. 
You are city -bred, and hence admire these 
knolls of straight-standing, lofty-headed spires, 
which, you suggest, would look well in a paint- 
ing. I would give all these erect acres for that 
little patch three rods square just down in the 
sunny sag yonder. There the heads are bent 
in humility, for they carry ten times the grain 
to the ear. What struggles have those heavy- 
laden endured, against winds and rains, till 
almost overcome at times; but through all the 
summer they have successfully carried their 
ideals. 

To-morrow come the angel reapers. God is 
not concerned about numbers. Are there few 



252 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



that be saved? It is not for us to answer; 
but we know that in that day, not momentary 
impulse, not pride and ostentation of hasty re- 
solution, but genuine hearts, will be gathered 
into the eternal granges. 

Pity the poor souls who, abandoning Christ, 
seek again a place among the sneering, mock- 
ing, wicked world. The agony of such spirits 
at times must be most pitiable. Peter, furious, 
swore with a mad oath that he knew not the 
Man. A once proud merchant who has failed, 
walking past his former business stand over- 
hears men remark, "That is the old A. corner. 
You know the old A. place." He cringes. He 
is that same A. "Why will they keep alive 
my shame by reminding each other what I once 
was, in contrast with what I now am ? I would 
like to burn it down." Ah! let him dare! 
What has been, has been. 

There are backsliders who would be glad to 
burn to ashes of all human forgetfulness the 
most beautiful years of their life, that men 
might not have the data of contrast with their 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



253 



present. But those years will not burn. They 
must stand. Hence, frenzied hearts, they do 
the next best thing; they try to live so badly 
that no one will believe they ever could have 
been good. What depths of sin or infidelity do 
they sound! 

There must be something wrong with the 
locomotive or its load, when the chief employ- 
ment at the stations is to get up steam for the 
next transit. There must be something wrong 
in that Christian life which employs the Sab- 
bath, habitually and with deliberate calculation, 
in " resting up" for the secular exertions it fore- 
sees on Monday. The Sabbath is thus hypothe- 
cated to Mammon. He who overworks all the 
week, expecting his Sunday sleep, lounging and 
dull staying at home to compensate him, mort- 
gages the Lord's Day. In a good, healthy life 
each day's tasks ought to be met and matched 
by the strength of each day : and the six days 
of toil to stand like a bodyguard about the free- 
dom of the Sabbath, the princeliest of them all. 



254 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



What "would yon say of the householder who, 
proposing to keep out the night from his dwell- 
ing, should meet the twilight at the doors and 
beat it back with hands of flesh and blood? 
Rather light all your candles upon candle- 
sticks, set every chamber in softest blaze, so 
that the glowing apartments repel the gloom 
with, "We are full — full of light; there is no 
room for gloom." 

Meet temptation with holy thought and illus- 
trious desire to know and do the will of God. 
Whatsoever things are pure, think on these 
things. If there be to you any sweet loves at 
home, to you, traveller ; if any tender memories 
of the just ; if any recollections of noble deeds 
which you have seen or shared ; if any old songs 
and hours of worship, go within to ponder them. 
Listen to the silver tones of Him who sups with 
you, and thus forget the outward roar of night 
winds, being in the bosom of true peace. 

A traveller was pursuing his journey welt till 
a butterfly sailed across his path, and, grasping 
at it, he failed to catch it. Again he snatches, 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 255 



and again the bright wing eludes him. He 
turns to pursue it, despite the calls of compan- 
ion pilgrims pointing to the declining sun. He 
will not be baffled by an insect! Away over 
stile and through hedges, till he falls with a 
broken leg. But he got the butterfly, crumpled 
and dead in his fevered palm. In after years 
this contemptible trifle becomes a most moment- 
ous event in destiny. 

"You were at Gettysburg that noble day?" 

"No, it was an insect." 

There comes an hour, also, when two stout 
limbs would have served him to swim out of 
drowning waters, and shoulder a child besides. 
But the butterfly of forty years ago flew away 
with ten years of his life and he drowns. As 
if life had no gigantic obstacles to change its 
destiny, that youth must endow trifles with 
such power! 

Some men persistently decline to face calmly 
the thought of their own decease. Such lives 
are like those catch-all closets into which shift- 
less housekeepers thrust every thing with a 



256 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



whisk or fling, not caring more than that the 
reluctant door can be crowded to and locked. 
When death comes it generally falls to the lot 
of the weary wife to open that door, while all 
the sad confusion falls prone at her feet. Beg- 
gars! Why did he not tell us we were not 
rich ? Disgraced ! Why did he not explain it ? 
Craven hearts ! Men are conscious of shameful 
entanglements and wrongs, which, while they 
live, they can bridge over and tie up with a 
hand skilful for concealment. But when they 
are gone they must know the dreadful revela- 
tions shall tumble down into the light of day, 
to crush the fond hearts who loved them best. 

The lion's whelps pause not to think what 
taint of cruelty, of pain, of sorrow to others is 
on the bleeding morsel flung down to them; 
but fall to the more greedily for the smell of 
blood. If the heirs of some men would only 
stop to think, to smell the blood that cleaves 
to every item of their estates ; how to gain this 
parcel there was such struggle that another, 
losing it, flung a curse after it; how this is stig- 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 257 



matized with jealousy and envy; how in gain- 
ing this the sire first began to neglect his Christ 
and to disregard his own honor : if by some 
angelic executive each item of their inheritance 
could be traced to. its cruel and offensive get- 
ting, with divine revelations, possibly the patri- 
mony might go begging. " Sons, daughters, 
who will receive this, the price of your father's 
honor ? and this, of his soul ? " " Not L" " Nor 
I." "Nor yet I. Why, therefore, let us beg." 

There is that family of three excellent maiden 
ladies, poor souls, who would not harm a worm, 
for years living quiet lives, upon their ample 
inheritance. Yet they eat a tainted loaf, wear 
mildewed silks, flash in lustre-dimmed dia- 
monds, carry tarnished books of devotion to the 
church, and dispense defiled though ample char- 
ity. It is no fault of theirs, God pity them ! for 
they do naught but take the semi-yearly stipend 
from the faithful cashier. But their inheritance 
is defiled. " Father ? We rarely speak of him. 
Dead — and — gone — to — " The facts are that, 
to win what so innocently these girls enjoy, the 
man degraded himself till he was but a swag- 
gering, profane ox, with tremendous brain and 



258 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



stomach., but a spirit dead within his bosom. 
His religion was "Get gain." 

Thousands of passers-by look upon his heirs 
with "Ah! you are not to blame; but we re- 
member your father, curse him ! We have rea- 
son to." 

It is sometimes terrible. The broken, old 
mechanic glares upon the fair-faced babe trun- 
dling through sumptuous gateways as he passes, 
and hisses that " 'Tis the third generation from 
the old vampire who sucked my blood and left 
me for dead." 

Young men, it is not simply to leave an in- 
heritance to our children, but an inheritance 
undefiled. 

How different the Christian's heavenly inher- 
itance. In all the toil of our great Founder, 
even to His piteous death, there is naught to 
bring a blush of shame to the cheeks of the 
heirs. It tells of no man's pain but His own; 
no man's blood but His own, shed upon a cross 
in which we glory. 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 259 



Great joy is very near to sorrow. One be- 
thinks him instantly of the beloved dead who 
would have so eagerly partaken, but died with- 
out the sight. Joy is like the precious oil of 
olives. It softens, but also opens the lips of 
every healed wound the past has given. What 
mother saw the happy Christmas morning, and 
watched her little ones and larger jubilant, with 
skies above them all as bright as ever-noon, but 
felt the very bliss unstop her long-sealed mem- 
ory griefs ? Stealing off, you missed her for a 
space, till, found in the upper, silent chamber, 
the dead boy's room, bitterly weeping on the 
day of smiles. 

Hence old lives often warn us, supposing they 
have found a truth, " When happiness is guest, 
then grief is knocking at the door." Not so. 
Eather, happiness is a generous guest, and soft- 
ly whispers of the absent, lest they should be 
forgotten. Grief is a more selfish visitant, 
claiming undivided entertainment; yet even 
she, if hosts insist upon it, will conjure pictures 
of more peaceful scenes from long ago. 



260 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



Waiting in a parlor I leaned over the piano, 
when, to my surprise, it spake to me. 

" Why does no one play upon me ? " 

" Eeally, I should judge some one had just 
left you as I entered." 

"No matter. Play upon me. Do you not 
play? The more I have the more I want." 

"Very well. The next person that enters 
shall be informed of your wish. But what kind 
of music does a piano like best? There is 
"Eobert le Diable," "Duke Street," or "Home, 
Sweet Home." 

" Any thing ! " 

" Indeed. Yet what a difference ! " 

" Any thing ; any thing so that I quiver and 
throb with sensations." 

Am I speaking to the sentimentalist ? Plain- 
ly, your emotions are not worth a tittle, as in- 
dices of your approach to pure religion. There 
is no sense of duty at their beginning nor end- 
ing. You are in the habit of playing with feel- 
ing. You luxuriate in being played upon. 
Your religious emotions are your sport. 

To-day they run riot with you, upward, read- 
ing the religious novel, till, contemplating the 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 261 



saintly heroine, you are bathed in tears. To- 
morrow feelings sweep downward; and in de- 
spondency you think on the dead, or the cold, 
cold world, or your own death, which you por- 
tray in imagination, wondering who would 
weep, till again, all tears, you close the hour 
with the assurance that you have spent a profit- 
able season. Not so. This is your habit of 
years. There is no "What must I do?" in it. 
The opium-eater or wine-bibber is your com- 
panion. 

I have met strong men who craved this 
drunkenness of religious pathos. Assenting all 
too readily to my exhortations, they respond 
" I had as noble a Christian mother as ever 
lived. I love to think how the dead woman 
prayed for me." Man ! And yet you do not 
comply ? To think would drive most men mad. 
u No, I get soft in thinking, my eyes fill. Yes, 
she prayed for me, poor sinner that I am. I 
am a very hard heart, sir; always was. All the 
family became converted but me. I shall be 
separated from them, doubtless, in eternity. 
Glad to have talked with you. It has done 
me good." 



262 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



In God's name, it has not. Such scenes, your 
habit, waste your heart and brain. It is the in- 
toxication of religious pathos. Some men buy 
it at five cents per glass ; some for three dollars 
a night at the box-office with reserved seats, 
entering at the dying scene ; some for ten cents 
per copy, bound in yellow; some prefer to gar- 
ner it at revival meetings, which they have at- 
tended far and near for years, departing from 
each as unchanged at heart as they entered. 

A noble heat glows from the contemplation 
of duty. One must feel deeply to act grandly. 
Christ rocked in an awful pathos, and sweat 
great drops of blood, saying, " Not my will, but 
thine be done." His cross was the one sublime 
passion of the world. Hear Paul cry, "Who 
shall separate us from the love of Christ ? " de- 
fying the universe in exalted enthusiasm. But 
your feeling is not of that kind. Else long ago 
it had swept you into Christ's kingdom. 

Sedate observers will confess there is no sight 
so sad as a young life, steeled to bitter pride by 
some woe, throwing itself against God, scorning 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 263 



prayer, rejecting kindly consolations of the re- 
ligion in which it trusted while prosperity last- 
ed, striking a bare hand against jagged rock 
till the unmailed member is beaten into bloody 
shreds of pain. It is so hopeless. It is an effort 
to punish — shall-we speak what the proud heart 
scarce whispers to itself? — the Almighty. It 
is so long a road on which the poor soul has 
entered; a resistance of twenty years? yes; 
twenty centuries ; eternity ! It suggested insan- 
ity when Xerxes was whipping the sea in the 
Hellespont. One thinks of the wide waste of 
laughing waters that stretched that day beyond 
the Pillars of Hercules, past the unknown Cape 
Horn, and along countless distant shores. Felt 
they the blows? 

Man should arraign himself, be severe with 
himself, accuse and afflict himself — not Deity. 
Herein is the secret of that word, " Humble 
yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of 
God." Self-examination for correction is the 
lawful aim of that indignation which flashes 
forth under " Providential " sufferings. 



264 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



Herein is the wisdom of this world's wise. 
If a man's affairs have gone wrong this year, 
as appears in these days of 44 taking account of 
stock," let him challenge himself. It is indeed 
so hard a duty that only minds of the finest 
fibre are equal to the effort. Easier by far is it 
to accuse one's employees, or correspondents, or 
44 circumstances," or 44 Providence." Yet a stern 
nature issues the indictment. 44 If my em- 
ployees, why was I blind to their incapacity? 
If buyers and sellers, I should have been a keen- 
er observer. If circumstances, I should have 
fashioned them. If Providence, what is there 
in me that provokes chastisement? I, I am at 
fault." Possibly self eventually is acquitted; 
but only after the most rigid trial. The great 
manufacturer, conscious of strength, is wont to 
publish his commands, demanding implicit obe- 
dience, for he professes to hold himself responsi- 
ble for every thing that goes wrong in his gi- 
gantic concerns. 

Such minds are magnificent timber out of 
which to fashion cashiers, head clerks, overseers 
or common-conn oilmen. They hedge not, with 
mawkish complaint and crimination of others; 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 265 



but with resolute humiliation of themselves de- 
termine the correction of old abuses. They 
shoulder the blame. Such men make good pas- 
tors. If there be spiritual dearth in the church, 
they bow low before God, praying, " Search me, 
Lord! and see if there be any wicked thing 
in me" They hold themselves accountable for 
every jar that disturbs the harmony of a body 
of which they are the head. But the deacons, 
nay the most inconspicuous members of the 
church, should adorn themselves with the same 
mind. 

On the sea-shore in mid-summer sunshine a 
group of city -bred children are at their aimless 
play. Born to the rich, they have been waited 
on from their cradles until now. Nurses watch 
over them, picking up their sand-shovels, shoes, 
and hats as often as they cast them down. 
The old fisherman accosts a lad. "Here, boy, 
hold one end of my net." The youngster 
grasps it eagerly, the fisher talking mean- 
while, telling how much he helps in the mend- 
ing, explaining the uses of the net. The 



266 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



chattering little bevy, at first interested spec- 
tators, fall off one by one : but our young help- 
er still holds the net. Other boys importune 
him to a sail. No. He is useful ! for the first 
time in his life. It is perfect luxury. The 
soggy serge drips upon his fine attire ; his 
hands smart with the brine, the dinner -call 
sounds and ceases from the great hotel. But 
he stirs not. Of course workmen must soil 
their garments and hands, and fast till duty 
is done. Appearing in the radiant parlors at 
length, "Where have you been, my poor child?" 
salutes his bedraggled plight, from horrified 
lips. But he, proud as a prince in that first 
usefulness, has been "Helping! Helping the 
fishermen mend their nets." 

They take him to the Palatine hill of the 
city home next day; and again in fashionable 
uselessness begins the old course of pampered 
luxury ; but the boy's dreams are full for 
months of the one brightest day of his life, 
by the sea, when he was useful. 

In the prosperous home -circle of many a 
strong church are children of the faith who 
would find such zest of joy, could they but be 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 267 



employed. They need to be persuaded of their 
mission; to believe themselves of some use in 
the Christian cause. Their present thought is, 
"I can not. Ask some one else." They can 
not make public prayer or testimony in social 
meetings; can not visit the sick; can not re- 
prove the wicked; can not exhort the erring. 
Amid a world full of people who "can not,'' 
how refreshing to meet a man who " can," 
like Paul, " do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth." 

Man, woman, believers, your voice can sing 
for us, your mind plan for us, your feet run 
on hallowed errands for us. You can help 
the fishermen mend their nets. And to you a 
happiness of which you have not yet dreamed 
would ensue. 

I was returning from performing the mar- 
riage ceremony. 

u You smile," said an aged woman, standing 
at the gate. 

"I smile. It was a wedding." 

Turning to pass on, shaking her iron-gray 



268 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



curls she said, "Do they do well who wed 
to-day?" 

I knew what w^as in her mind ; for one of 
her daughters had wed a scoundrel and an- 
other a fool, while a third was yet left at her 
knee. "Do they do well who wed to-day?" 
Poor heart! 

That night a strange fear seized me as I 
gave the good-night kiss to my own, almost 
at her fourth birthday. I held the little face 
long between my hands, gazing down so wist- 
fully into the two wondering eyes that the 
two soft lips began to quiver and to ask, "At 
what are you looking, papa ? " 

I was looking at the vast future ; what storms 
should brew above this head, and buffet my 
child, when I am gone. Who should walk on 
this side of her, and on this? What beliefs 
shall be in the air, thirty years away? Will 
society be stable, and the nation at peace? 
Will men be brave and women true, because 
the religion of Christ holds the world in harmo- 
nious sway? To leave her wealth? It would 
prove a curse in an age of anarchy. 

Therefore let me consecrate my life anew, to 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



269 



bless young boys and girls, to lay a little 
firmer and deeper, if I may, the foundations of 
a Christian civilization, — for her sake and for 
His. 



They have in the rural districts, up among 
those well-to-do farmers, two kinds of "com- 
pany." There is the " Best-room company," or 
visitors : the nice people, city people, people of 
station you know, and the new minister. When 
any of these call they are ushered into the "par- 
lor"; a disused room on the north-west cor- 
ner of the house, cold, no fire in the polished 
grate which is filled with leaves and grasses of 
the dead summer; green blinds shut so tight, 
and, to open them for light one must break the ✓ 
glue of years about the immaculate window 
sash. How the wind bursts in stirring the pho- 
tographs poised upon the centre-table, knocking 
over the cross of real Palestine wood and dry 
as tinder, chilling us all to the bone. We sit 
and talk, hugging ourselves with the thought 
that we are parlor guests at least, though our 
very heart is freezing, this winter's day. 



270 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



There be those who conceive of religion as 
that same cold, best-room affair; and Jesus as 
best-room company. 

But the " Home-room company," the other 
kind. When they know and love you well 
enough to let you in where they live. A room 
with southward gazing windows on the silver 
hills, with brilliant shafts of sunlight always 
on the floor, and the warmth of generous hearth 
ablaze; with the housewife's vines festooning 
sash and door in low December; with easy 
chair, and crib, and Bible in its place upon the 
stand, across whose open page the grandam's 
spectacles, as she pauses now to think; with 
children at their play, or sleeping to the music 
of the purring cat and simmering kettle bur- 
nished like a mirror ; where unaffected welcome 
and good- will shine upon the visage of the an- 
cient timepiece high, before whose honest point- 
ers all deceit w T ould cower. To be admitted 
there, where hearts commune with hearts ! 

Jesus of Nazareth is home company. If any 
man will, I will come unto him and sup, and he 
with me. I tell you, orphaned boy and home- 
less, the gospel is home, ten thousand times 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 271 



more sweet and tender than the home you lost, 
sad years ago. God is our Father, Christ our 
Elder Brother — if you will. Come in, out of 
the cold. I tell you also, man of many logics 
and formalities, that Christ loves a warm heart 
better than the stateliest ovations. Let Him 
into the secret chamber of your life. 

There are good letters, full of all gentleness, 
encouragement, honest thanks, and sound advice 
of love. Put them by themselves. There are, 
on the contrary, others sharp and cold: and, 
unless they are abusive or anonymous — that 
coward's kick, the kick of a sheep and not a 
lion's stroke — store them also, labelling them 
" Tonic letters." So when you become tumid, 
arrogant and over self-elated, do not pour cam- 
phene on flame by perusing the "good letters," 
but take a dose of bitter things, to cool your 
fever. 

Who does not know what it is, when dis- 
heartened and self-contemptuous, to draw forth 
from that other bundle sweet words of cheer. 
Yellow and old, from which a photograph fell 



272 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



as I turned it, one was to me this week like a 
voice from the grave — nay, the Better Land: for 
he, being dead, yet spake, telling of his confi- 
dence in me, in my ability to be of service in 
my times, bidding me go on. To cut the tape 
of that bundle, you, and read for half an hour, 
one after another, your friend's great hope of 
you, — most gentle honor, — is like opening a 
door from winter into instant summer; from a 
world of storms, where you are beggared, quite 
unclad, off into tropic lands of birds and amber 
skies and sheltered homes; till you feel — they 
say so many goodly things, and so many differ- 
ent ones say them — that it is not safe to tarry 
long under this heavenly equator without ac- 
climating. One must be a better man, God 
helping. 

When one has stood for nearly a year now, 
with his name upon a piece of paper at first 
no bigger than a man's hand, but seen to grow 
as storm-clouds grow; when he has taken ner- 
vous journeys by midnight trains, and returning 
said, "I don't know! Would God this suspense 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 273 



were over ! " When he has looked at his beau- 
tiful home with, " Heaven only knows how long 
I can keep it." When he has envied the se- 
curity — security? — of his neighbor across the 
street; tossing the babes, with the shadow of 
the fifteenth of the month falling over their 
play ; tearing open letters as if they were death 
warrants ; sleeping not, eating not, speaking not 
to any of the load he lifts; and when he can 
not live much longer — Then, when it comes at 
last, a telegram, and he is safe ! safe ! 

He shuts the office door. He sinks into the 
chair, and the whole man uncoils. Knotted like 
a whip-lash for a year, he relaxes now. Big 
tears gather, and press unchecked as unbidden 
through the closed eyelids, rolling across the 
hard face, upon his cold hands, upon the paper 
in his close grasp. He beats and throbs all 
over with fatigue, but is so glad to rest now. 
He takes back all his sad complaints against 
kind Providence, and finds himself praying, 

"0 God of my fathers, how wonderful is my 
life ! my life." He dwells upon that word, 
my life. 

And sleeps there, in his chair, as if kind 
18 



274 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



angels soothed him. They rouse him in the 
twilight, and his first thought is for that old 
haunting spectre, Trouble. Gone, and forever. 
How exhausting this delicious sense of safety 
and thanksgiving, a hidden ecstasy of good 
after ecstasies of evil. There is a sense of 
being favorite, maybe, with Heaven, and the 
thought overwhelms the soul. There is a lux- 
ury of gratitude about the altar where one 
poured out pleading cries ; a wish to tell it 
from the house-top, yet a fear lest prayerless 
men would call it mad. There is delicious con- 
ning over, as one walks. Home ? Safe. Good 
name? Safe. The nest of my parent's age? 
Safe. My son's career at schools? Safe. My 
plans with church and charities? Safe. Sink, 
sun, and leave the world to-night and sleep, for 
all is safe. He that keepeth us neither slumbers 
nor sleeps. Oh, when one thinks of countless 
thousands over earth who are this very instant 
pining for this safety, almost distracted with 
anxieties, if one had a thousand wires to flash 
them all the one assurance " Safe " ! We are 
sure that Heaven could, if Heaven would. 
Yet, after all, what is it, the security of life's 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 275 



little day, its small affairs. The Saviour waits 
to assure you all of safety in the vast Eternity. 

Did you never, in some siege of sickness, 
when the nerves were harp-strings which the 
slightest breath would ring, lie and listen to 
the sounds in house or street, and give them 
words? The winds, in tree-tops by the win- 
dow, whisper, " Hush ! Hush ! Hu — sh," till 
in very impatience of being so commiserated 
you wish the trees would utter something else ; 
but you can not seem to make them. A bell 
rings in the neighboring steeple, and your dis- 
tempered fancy makes it say, "Come! Come." 
The more you listen the more unmistakable it 
seems. " Come you. Come you." Can not the 
rest of you hear it ? It fairly articulates u Come 
now." Oh ! but I can not come. I wish it 
would cease. Then friends begin to whisper to 
each other that you are very weak to-night. 
That bell! Leaning over you they ask — 

" You are quite tired out to-night, dear ? " At 
times the home-sick soul of exiled saints, weary 
with infirmities, can hear but one sweet word 



276 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



from the whole gospel, namely, " Come home." 
To them for the time there is no other word in 
all the Scriptures but this holy invitation. Ee- 
ligion means just this alone. " Home, Heaven, 
Eest." You must not think it strange ; nor 
judge that this is really all religion teaches its 
profoundest votaries. 

Preachers do not depict the judgment day 
of late as was once the habit of the pulpit? 
There are reasons, and among them this: that 
while almost every other doctrine of the gospel 
seems to need a defending peculiar to these 
times of doubt, this, with men who believe in 
immortality at all, stands singularly undisputed. 
" Thank God, He is the judge." Amid the 
countless heavings and subsidings of social posi- 
tion, the grinding wrongs with which the 
strong oppress the weak, the suspicions false 
and praises falser, temptations, falls, and hid- 
den motives of our deeds, it is simply an escape 
from the crazy tyranny of Fate, u God has ap- 
pointed a day — appointed it. We can wait," 
God will call no witness, for His eyes have seen 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 277 



all. Nor will he lack power to enforce the ver- 
dict. Then each soul shall know its judgment 
just, and so confess it. 

A shrewd, sharp practitioner sifted and sifted 
and sifted ; and when he was done he had sifted 
the good man's happiness all through to the 
ground, under whose sod the good man slept 
broken-hearted. The shrewd, sharp practitioner 
then sifted the fragments of the estate through ; 
and the widow and the three fair daughters, 
now must toil or beg ; sifted the one son out to 
sea, taking him at his boyish fancy; and when 
he was done the splendid mansion was left in 
the sifters' sieve. When the poor boy, grown 
bearded and returned, struggled in the courts 
against false claims now ancient and established, 
the judge was forced to say, "We must proceed 
on facts, gentlemen of the jury. The plaintiff 
must present facts, not sentiment." Hence the 
sifters' sieve still contained the stolen home. 

When yesterday the sifter died, old and rich, 
all the village folk looked on him carried forth, 
echoing the orphan's thoughts. "There will 
be no lack of facts, up there. Now a greater 
sieve begins its turning." 



278 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 



But do these kind-hearted villagers, the son 
defrauded and his indignant kin, do we all ex- 
pect to escape the judgment, so freely confessed 
when it suits our own avenging? Except ye 
repent ye shall all likewise perish. 

I remember when a lad, tempted often, at- 
tempting it at last, the climb to the belfry of 
father's church, — the first climb, though des- 
tined to be repeated at every subsequent sta- 
tion of the itinerant. Straining at the trap, 
emerging amid the attic's yellow light where 
here and there a sunbeam, dead, grew living in 
the swirling dust my feet had raised; pigeons, 
more stairs, the ladder, and at length the yawn- 
ing lips of the great bell with shining blisters 
on the inner side of either cheek and on the 
tongue. Creeping round, amid the buffet of 
high winds, I read these letters under my 
clinging fingers, 

" Gloria in Excelcis Deo." 

Why, then, every time it rings it shouts 
"Glory to God in the Highest!" Ever after 
when it rung for church it seemed to say it; 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 279 



and when it tolled, according to the village 
custom, for the dead. When it struck for fire 
I could hear no other speech, though it seemed 
strange in such connection; and when it rocked 
in jubilee on Fourth of July mornings, though 
apter now, and aptest when stout Lee surren- 
dered, " Glory to God in the Highest." 

Doubtless it was literally true, a physical 
fact, that the bell wrote these words upon the 
air. A bell with a curved or notched edge 
would send out curved or notched pulsations. 
Any thing that rings vibrates its whole shape. 
From the outline of the 6r, the \ and every let- 
ter came the tiny wavelets, though the eye 
could see them not. 

Thus when habit has shaped the human soul 
and flesh, as the tones of the bell are the re- 
sult of its form, the acts of the soul are the 
result of its real character. What is scolding ? 
A material or mechanical readjustment of vocal 
chords by long practice, set to stridulous, harsh 
tones, as if written in the very muscles at least ; 
so that when volition gives the command "Open 
the lips and speak," the body obeys with a 
scold. What are habitual fretting and repin- 



280 ARE THESE THINGS SO? 

ing but the same ? What is profanity, in those 
dreadful stages wherein the poor victim can not 
speak without it? Observe that the shape the 
oath takes is quite uniform. With some ex- 
plosive labials are favorite; with others sibi- 
lants; with others gutterals, which the name of 
God, of Christ, or the "by" supply. The voli- 
tion commands emphatic speech. Throat, lips, 
and tongue, with devilish training bent, com- 
ply with curses. Like some habitual gesture 
of the hand, or poise of shoulders ; involuntary, 
but characteristic. Ask these men; they are 
unaware of their profanity. Ask them; it is a 
physical exertion to refrain, in polite society. 
Think of it, an impulse to curse written into 
the very texture of man's noblest animal func- 
tion, speech. The bell said " Glory to God." 
Such men defame Him. If the body can get 
such lasting bias, what of the soul within ? 
Wherever it be the spirit of St. Paul must 
ever be saying, " Glory to God in the Highest." 

In a Maine ship-yard last summer, workmen 
cut from the butt of a mast-to-be the uneven 



ARE THESE THINGS SO? 281 



end left by the woodman's axe, and tossed it 
away. Afterwards, wanting a truck for the 
head of the mast, they economically saved this 
same fragment, and fashioned and fastened in 
its place. It was naught to the mast-foot, cling- 
ing to the keelson in the dark below, that its 
foot had become its crown, the last first, sa- 
luted by the sunbeams, stars, and earliest vi- 
sions of the land; only it was strange. Many 
a human life has been surprised to find how 
strangely the wise Master Builder, in His new 
creation of the soul, takes unseemly moments, 
years of sorrow maybe, fragments of suffering 
seasons which we would have cast into willing 
forgetfulness, and crowns us with them. Had 
it not been for those griefs and humiliations, 
we might not have been saved. 



I N DEX. 



(With rare exceptions index titles denote that the fragment embracing the 
idea named begins upon the page designated.) 



Accustomed to Gospel phraseology till it has lost its 
power, 215. 

Admirable Crichton, the child of many hopes, 117. 
After the coward's death, 255. 

Alone, 3; in open fields, 53; in the city, forest, and mid- 
ocean, 136-139. 

Alpine guides, compared to preachers, 121. 

Altars found in lowly homes, 78. 

Amiable man, the, 199. 

Ants rebuilding their shattered work, 43. 

Apologizing for one's convictions, the early apple-trees' 
blossoms, 123. 

Appetite compared with spiritual delights, 140. 

Artist, starving and painting, 21. 

Associates, choice of, 166. 

Astronomer and pupil, illustrating learning religious 
truth, 205. 

Atonement continually needed by men, 85. 
Avalanche, King of, 207. 
Awakening a sleeping man, 21. 

Backsliders, 252. 

Bad company, like lightning stroke, 166; helps men 
down, 170. 



284 



INDEX. 



Battles, the greatest fouglit against self, 81. 
Beauty and bounty of June explaining God's nature, 15. 
Beautiful, the, an employment of Eternity, 19. 
Belief, illustrated, 66. 

Benevolence at fifty cents the round trip, 33. 

' ' Best-room company," Christ received as such, 269. 

Biographies, false as photographs of the face, 158. 

Blessings, taught to appreciate, 160. 

Broken-hearted, a woman's story, 202. 

Brooklet in Spring freshets, 242. 

Brotherly love, a lesson with a walking stick, 196, 231. 
Builders', their neglected plans like good intentions de- 
ferred, 52. 

Bullrush, its joints like marked events in life, 25. 

Calvary, fondest scene in Christ's life, 238. 

Cares, what to do with them, 29; most felt by the 

strongest, 48. 
Cashiers, good timber for, 263. 
Catskill rocks, 89. 

Centennial Exhibition thronged by plain people, 40. 
Character, force of unsanctified, 201. 
Charity is charity, 222. 

Chemistry, a process in, likened to faith, 65. 
Children, fidelity to, 267 ; born to no welcome, 50. 
Chinese, the effort to exclude them, 224. 
Christian desire should be to cure sin, 22; what it is to 
be a, 93. 

Christianity began with a Life, 36; the true meaning 
of, 8. 

Christ, is "-Home-room" company, not "Parlor com- 
pany," 269; in Gethsemane, 236; on Calvary as seen 
by Christians to-day, 238; His death to rescue the 



INDEX. 



285 



physical world, 213; the soul's ideal hero, 184; saves 
ignorance, 188; preacher and healer, 189; the soul 
permitted to adore its hero, 41; a living creed, 5; the 
I am and conscious of eternity, 112; questions I would 
like to ask, if here to-day, 149; the way, 68; the Cen- 
tre of true life, 72; likened to sunlight begging ad- 
mittance, 83. 
Christmas morning, 259. 

Church, admission into, 158; the, warrants no man, 192; 
its blessed fraternity, 106; audiences asleep, 249; mem- 
bers likened to products of a garden, 34. 

Circumstances, the excuse of, 155. 

City Christianity and city Christians, 17. 

City Hall clock and my mantel clock, 26. 

Climbing into the belfry, 278. 

Cloud watchings, 133. 

College chum, his recent visit to you, 159. 

Commanded to receive mercy, strange, 92. 

Communism tested, 96. 

Completing our dreams, 19. 

Confession to God gives peace, to men made in fear, 59. 
Conflicts in the soul, compared to opposing winds, 141 ; 

compared to wrestling with a sterile farm, 141. 
Confidence in ordinances given by using them, 65. 
Connecticut River, its gate of echoes, 45. 
Conscience like a vine needing a trellis, 167. 
Conscience, never forgotten to be put into a man at 

creation, 189. 

Controversy, use it to save your man not your party, 5. 

Conversion, "harp attachment" to music-box, 161; "vi- 
tal spark" the thing changed, 163; the gardener and 
his watering-pot, 165; thraldom of character, not as 
iron must be iron, and lead must ever be lead, 124; 



286 



INDEX. 



mined foundations replaced, 126; knowledge of system- 
atic theology not necessary in, 188; good morals result 
of, 195; compared to an old clock's readjustment, 197; 
broken-hearted healed in, 202; average age at which 
it occurs, 218; apparently diverse, but identical, 226; 
Xicodemus' midnight visit, 146; and church-member- 
ship, 158; a priceless assurance comes with, 58; first 
stages marked by will, 67; in advanced stages invol- 
untary, 67. 

Conviction, how to convict self, 178. 

Conviction of sin incites to reticence, 61. 

Country road compared to familiar doctrines, 64 

Courage of convictions, 127. 

Creed, 36. 

Cross, the Christian's, what it is, 178; bearing the cross, 
127; contentment has no basis but the, 141. 

Darkened houses, 83. 

Daybreak, its silence illustrating conviction for sin, 61. 
Day of wrath compared to haymakers' scythes, 230. 
Days, the coldest, 152; compared to coin at the mint, 
115. 

Death, sudden, a stern accountant, 229 ; separating 
families, 244; calmly faced, 255; realized by Decem- 
ber days, 113; after the coward's, 255. 

Depravity, like two kinds of decay in forest trees, 135; 
illustrated by watches that need repah'ing, 150. 

Desire, a good man's first, 57. 

Despondency, likened to mould, 11. 

Diamonds, real and paste, 39. 

Dives and the unemployed laborer, 78. 

Dolls, children playing with, 132. 

"Do they do well who wed to-day ? " 267. 



< 



INDEX. 287 

Doubt resolutely overcome, compared to " coldest days," 
152. 

Dreams of an old man, 46. 

Duties compared to a farmer's fences, 129; stones thrown 

into a lake, 132. 
Dying testimony, 94. 

Echoes in the book of Kevelations, 45. 
Envy among children, 132; is covetousness gone to 
seed, 98. 

Eternity, Christ conscious of it, 109; the pupil in draw- 
ing who dies pencil in hand, 19; lying on a bank 
above the cataract, 23; the labor of our hands safe 
only in, 272. 

Ethics, the Church must lead in, 35. 

Excuses which insult love, 233. 

Experience, we make it, 81. 

Failures and ruins, 2 ; in apostate's life, 252. 

Faith like a starving artist's pencil, 21; tried, 185; in 
things we can not understand, 228. 

Faithfulness, illustrations of sensualist's, 31; in ordi- 
nances, 65; no equivalent for moral neglects, 74. 

Family united in Christ, 244; compared to four oaks, 
246. 

Fashion, its sensuous delights, 31. 
' ' Feeling, more feeling, " 260. 
Fields, the, unchanged by centuries, 53. 
Fireman's feast, a question asked about, 140. 
Flowers teachers of unselfishness, 14. 
Forgiveness of sins likened unto an old man's dream of 
youth, 46. 

Fox-hunting, religious debate likened to, 8. 



"288 



INDEX. 



Friends can not help us in our greatest needs, 99. 
Friendship, true, founded on sacrifice, 220; precious in 
sorrow, 241. 

Gallantry to women, the fringe of mercy, 88. 

Gardener, the, and his watering-pot, 165. 

Gay Lothario arrested, 114. 

Oeranium, a, 73. 

Girl painting Head of Christ, 19. 

0od, His goodness, correct conception of, 128; conceived 
of as a Person, 129; needed in temporal as well as 
spiritual things, 155; always right, 169, 177; takes no 
pleasure in our sadness, unless, 164. 

Good beginnings and good endings illustrated by wheat 
field, 251. 

Good men great teachers, 172. 

Gospel echoes, 45. 

Gray old rats, 170. 

Great joy is very near to sorrow, 259. 
Great, the, their friendships cold, 95. 
Greed rebuked, 256. 

Grounds of the rich a blessing to the laborer, 15. 
Guilt a fetter to man, 191. 

Gulf stream a symbol of Divine Providence, 248. 
Habit, 278. 

Happiness the Christian's duty, 164. 

He heads bolts, 4. 

Heart likened to rivulet, 68. 

Hearts beat against each other among the lowly as grasses 

interlace in a meadow, 95. 
Heaven opened, 138; right views of, 197; heaven is 

where Christ is, 82. 



INDEX. 



289 



Help of souls in bondage, 193-195. 
Helping fishermen mend their nets, 265. 
Heroes, every one has his, 184. 

Holy Spirit, compared with wind-storms, 140; the work 
of the, 163; drawing us to Christ compared to the love 
which drew the prodigal home, 69. 

Home restored, 142. 

"Hope, vitality of, 73; encouragement to, 133. 
Horse Guards, the, and Nelson's monument, London, 116. 
Hospital, the, 150; friendless sailor in, 8. 
Hour, the same means different things, 26. 
How a wise mother manages her boy's doubts and the- 
ories, 5. 

" I also am a man," 238. 

I am glad or sad as you are glad or sad, 105. 

"I would like to burn it down," 252. 

Immortality, 187. 

In a Maine ship -yard, 280. 

Inanimate nature man's honest friend, 12. 

Intimacy with Jesus Christ through His word and 

works, 5. 
Invalid's room, 76-78. 

Invitations of the Gospel, acceptance of, through an 

Elder Brother, 69. 
Iron changed into lead, etc., illustration of change in 

character, 124. 
"It was an, insect," 254. 

Jealousy, 180. 

Jfesus takes our cares on Himself, 29. 

Joy of the chase, regret over the dead fox, 7, 

Jury room, 62. 



t 



290 INDEX. 

Judgment Day, the preaching of in. our times, 276; a 

great revealer, 62. 
Justice, none perfect on the earth, 92. 

Kinship presumed upon makes sorriest friendship, 220. 
Kisses instead of curses, 92. 

Lads, the history of three traced, 77. 

Lambs receiving herdsman's mark, 127. 

Last first, and first last, 280. 

Letters we receive, 271. 

Letter V a type of the truth, 204 

"Let us argue it," 1. 

Life and creed, 5; aims in, 174; life, a routine, 182. 

Life-work, saving one's, 57. 

Lincoln assassinated, 41. 

Lion's, the, whelps, 256. 

Locomotive in snow hank, 201. 

Lord's Day, 44. 

Lost in the crowd of a city, 136; and found in city 
streets, 215. 

Love the motive of reformation, 144; the highest form 

of justice, 27; sees no defects, 159; affronted, 233. 
Loyalty to Christ a passion in every age, 41. 

Magnolia and the beggar, 71. 

Man does not serve himself best, 85. 

Man, the, who can wait, 119. 

Manly calls to men, 38. 

Map, an isothermal, 189. 

May and must, 226, 82. > 

May morning, 72. * 

Mendicant friar, not of our times, 58. 



INDEX. 



291 



Merchant studying his business Sunday night, 24: over- 
worked, should economize himself, 26. 

Mercy not justice is what men want, 88; man's deliv- 
erer, 91. 

Misanthropy rebuked, 76. 

Missionary spirit, what is the true, 221; what is not, 222. 
Models in U. S. Patent Office, 36. 

Morality of the Gospel, its foundations, 149; members 

of Christian churches must be guides in, 35. 
Morals, good, result from the changed heart, 195. 
Mormonism, 96. 

Mother, an invalid, 239; and daughter seeking Christ, 243. 

Mother nursing a sick child, 29. 

Music, language of, 231. 

Mutual trust in the divine promise, 50. 

Nature's book-keeping, 209. 
Neighbors helping in affliction, 185. 
New man, a, 165. 
Nightfall, a lesson at, 254. 
No church, 106. 

Oats, four brother trees in conversation, 246. 

Obedience, the piqued child's, 234. 

Old age, 37, 162. 

Old hopes, 52. 

One's rights, asserting, 212. 

Opportunity, the Horse Guards and Nelson's monument 
London, 116; for Christian work, the young physician 
and small-pox hospital, 22; boy with torn flower, 209; 
in life, law of averages, 218; the one flash of winter's 
thunder-storm, 226; City Hall time and my own 
time, 26. 



292 



INDEX. 



Ostentation, good works not obnoxious to the charge 
of, 57. 

Painting, grouping objects about a centre, 72. 

Patience, divine, 213. 

Patriotism, Christian, 210. 

Paul's method of evangelizing great cities, 17. 

Peace of mind, 197. 

Penitent clerk discharged for confession, 59. 

Physical world, the, rescued by Christ, 213. 

Piano, what it said to me, 260. 

Piety in the workshop, 4. 

Plodders, 117. 

Popular preachers, 121. 

Practical religion, 4. 

Prayers of a mother, a wealth not computable, 24. 
Praying for friends, 99; is being alone with God, 100. 
Prejudices of good men, saddest obstacles to }Drogress, 62. 
Prison doors, Christ opens them, 88. 
Profanity, 280. 
Providence, 248. 
Punishment, 230. 

Receive, the one word of this life, 81 ; commanded to re- 
ceive mercy, 92. 
Records of life, Jehovah can not burn them, 87. 
Religion, what it is, 204, 197-199. 
Remorse awakened by gentleness, 10. 
Repent, we may, not must, 54. 

Repentance demanded of all, 150; a scene in the museum, 
157; as preached by Christ, 189; what it is, 190; the 
first step, 205; its difficulty to prominent evil doers, 
207, in advanced life, 217, 218. 



INDEX. 



293 



Bespect the secrecy of mental conflicts, 243. 

Bespectable selfishness, 56. 

Bevenge turned to love and pity, 54. 

Bewards of doing right in one's own heart, 141. 

Bich but friendless, 106; men's son's, 174. 

Biches, how to be carried, 148. 

Bums rebuilt, so of the soul, 126, 2. 

Sabbath observance, laborer's tool and business man's 
brain, 250; employed to get up steam for Monday, 
$53; a monument, 44; compared to a respite in battle 
to cool off the guns, 250. 

Safe, the merchant's deliverance, 272. 

Salvation, the problem of, 232. 

Saving your man the best triumph, 7. 

Secular conversation habitual in Christians, 93. 

Self, our ignorance of it compared to summer houses, 
224; arraigned, 263; condemned, 169. 

Self-respect ennobled by homage to Christ, 85. 

Selfishness illustrated by inventor's mechanism, 211. 

Sentimental intoxication, 260. 

Service to others our most faithful work, 85. 

Serving men in hopeless diseases, 50. 

Showers, the first after a drought, 66. 

Sickness for a day, 187; Christ's ministry to, 189; at 
home, 239. 

Sick-room fancies and voices, 275. 

Sifter's sieve, the, 276. 

Sinner wishing to be innocent, 30. 

Sins, compared to feathers piled high on a sleeping 

man, 21. 
Skepticism, cure for, 154. 
Sleepy hearers, 249. 



294 



INDEX. 



Socialism, Spiritualism, etc., 96. 

Soldier, the old, and his general, 144. 

Solitude, just one condition of absolute, 228; sorrows 

met in, 236; visitors friends to us in, 241-243. 
Soul compared to diamond, 187; what God seeks, 191. 
Sound doctrine may be held in an unsound way, 74. 
Sparrow, a, imprisoned, 88. 
" Spent but charged," 209. 
Spirituality, 155. 
Steeple clock, 215. 

Skme bruises, souls often get a religious soreness like, 
110. 

Strong, the, are burden bearers, 48. 
Stubble not the farmer's hope, 37. 
Summer house and winter houses, 224. 
Sunday excursions, 33. 

Sunflower leaf and microscopic photograph, 226. 
Sweeping the store well, 212. 

Sympathy illustrated by children in the dark, and pris- 
oners in Paris, 236; in families, 246. 
Systems of theology, 188, 226. 

Talking too much, 241; in trouble, 241. 

Temptations, best way to struggle with, 241; as candles 

lighted in houses, 254. 
Thanksgiving dinner painted by a hungry artist, 21. 
Thistles strange that people should prefer them, 34. 
Times and seasons, 97. 

To-morrow, 191; boy sweeping the store has nothing to 

do with, 212. 
44 Tonic letters " and good letters, 271. 
Toys, worn out, 160. 
Trifles endowed with awful power, 254. 



INDEX. 



295 



Trouble, two ways out of, 139. 
Trust, 188. 

Truth seen by men in half lights, 95. 

Unbelief, 152 ; illustrated by a cold day in May, 154. 

Vagabond's, the, thoughts, 216. 

Vine torn by the storm welcoming the gardener, 58. 

Visiting East River Bridge, 232. 

Votes and voters, 181. 

Wages, paying the farm laborers at sunset, 27. 

Watching in Gethsemane, 236. 

Watchmaker's shop, the, 150. 

Wealth makes men unsympathetic, 103. 

Wealthy men often forget the hardness of life, 103. 

Weary, 97. 

Westminster Abbey, every soul has its own, 172. 

What he left his children, 256; what the bell said, 278. 

Who broke the glass in the museum? 157. 

Who is to blame ? 262. 

WiU, the function of, 228. 

Windows that opened toward Jerusalem, 101. 

Winter's starlit night, thoughts on, 213. 

Woman, man's counsellor and helper, 78; arrested for 

theft, 30; the ministering angel in man's despair, 

80. 

Womanhood restored to enchantress whom Paul exor- 
cised at Philippi, 193. 
Work for Christ, motive for, 159; Christian, 265. 
Work-girl trusting in God's care, 49, 22. 
Working-girl shamed out of envy by real merit, 39. 
Works crystallizing into faith, 65. 



296 



INDEX. 



Worldly pleasures, 234. 

Worship provoked in man through the enjoyment of 
God's works in nature, 72; of the creature, 31; per- 
mitted towards Jesus, 41; at the altar of the ant 
hill, 43. 

Wrath, 230. 

Young man investing in the railway rather than in a 

stage line, 56; young men in politics, 56. 
Young, the, may lead the old to Christ, 37. 
Youth and Age, illustrated by flower stalk, 217. 



Zeal kindled by opposition, 119. 



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II 

I 



